ELIZABETH FOX-GENOVESE
367
for it and to compete on equal terms under uniform rules. We do not nor–
mally expect even the most talented of disabled athletes to compete head
to head with the most talented of those who are not. Occasionally, an
exceptional individual surmounts the obstacles of a handicap to enter the
general competition, but, to the best of my knowledge, no one ever bent
any rules for the one-armed, major league pitcher,Jim Abbott. He won his
opportunity to pitch in the major leagues by pitching better than countless
less talented aspiring pitchers, and when his fast ball lost something of its
velocity and his curve ball lost its curve, he, like any other pitcher, lost his
place in the rotation. All that Jim Abbott needed was a playing field that
was truly open to all who wished to compete, that did not, in other words,
exclude him from the outset because he lacked an arm. The same princi–
ples obtained with the entry of blacks into baseball. Jackie Robinson took
tougher knocks than most of us can even imagine, but, once he had with–
stood them, the game was opened to blacks who now command salaries as
high as the white players they equal or outshine.
Recent years have nonetheless taught us what we should have already
known, namely that even fairness does not always produce equal results–
or even results that everyone thinks are fair-and that the myth of the level
playing field is, precisely, a myth. Even if everyone were guaranteed gen–
uinely equal access to education, employment, and all the other
opportuni ties our society offers, we know that sooner or later some would
begin to drop by the wayside and only a few would ever attain the highest
incomes, most influential positions, and most prestigious distinctions.
Nature, or genetic endowment, which itself is not a popular concept these
days, plays a part. But so do class position, cultural tradition, and family
background. Children with resident biological fathers tend to out-perform
children of single or divorced mothers, just as the children of parents who
own and read books tend to fare better in school than the children of par–
ents who do not. Lack of financial resources normally limits a student's
choice of college, and a student who attends an elite private college tends
to reap a larger share of the world's rewards than one who does not.
Statistics suggest that cultural traditions, frequently associated with race or
ethnicity, may powerfully affect a child's ability to compete--sorrietimes
with greater than predictable success as well as with less. These factors,
however resistant to precise statistical measurement, help to account for
much of the initial support for affirmative action, which was viewed as a
way of increasing the representation of that all-too-familiar nostrum of
"women and minorities" in positions of affluence, power, and prestige.
In the case of that nebulous and euphemistic group "minorities," the
strategy, as you all know, has yielded mixed and frequently disquieting
results, and, after a quarter of a century, it has alienated enough of the
