We rather doubt that William Lamb, a British Prime Minister under Queen Victoria and the Second Viscount Melbourne, would have been a fan of the curious discriminatory practice we call “affirmative action.” But his fondness for the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the honor founded by Edward III in 1348, has at least one thing in common with that egalitarian impulse. The Order of the Garter was, said Lord Melbourne, his favorite honor. Why? “Because there was no damn nonsense of merit connected with it.” On the contrary, it is a thoroughly aristocratic, indeed, a royal distinction. Effort, accomplishment, “merit” do not figure into its metabolism. It is bestowed because of who you are, not because of what you have done.
So it is with affirmative action. It operates on behalf of certain people because of who they are, of what group-identity boxes they may check, not because of what they have done. Its beneficiaries, whose number vastly exceeds the twenty-four Order of the Garter “Companions,” may not be royalty, exactly. Nevertheless, they certainly find themselves eligible for many privileges denied to, and free from many strictures imposed upon, the rest of us.
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