{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.016227180527383367, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0030425963488843813, 'mean_word_length': 5.58, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The Conundrum of Equality

Debates about affirmative action in the United States often treat equality and difference, individual rights and group identities as distinct and separate questions when they are really interdependent concepts necessarily in tension with one another. The tensions play out in historically specific ways and need to be analyzed in their specific political embodiments, not as timeless moral or ethical choices. This essay explores three paradoxes (unresolvable tensions) at issue in debates about affirmative action: 1) Equality is an absolute principle and an historically contingent practice; 2) Group identities define individuals and deny the full expression or realization of their individuality; 3) Claims for equality involve the acceptance and rejection of the group identity attributed by discrimination. Or, to put it another way: the terms of exclusion on which discrimination is premised are at once refused and reproduced in demands for inclusion.