Americans have consistently said they believe in the principle of equality of
opportunity. As the authors of a Brookings Institution study on the subject
concluded: “Americans believe in opportunity. . . . They are far more interested
in equal opportunity than in equal results.” These days, however, that notion is
under constant challenge and even attack. Indeed, there are suggestions that it be
scrapped and replaced with newer ideas such as equity or equality of outcome.
Equality of opportunity is also challenged on the policy front, with proposed new
economic and social plans that would move America down a very different path.
- Opportunity vs. Outcome
The argument today seems to be that if equality of opportunity was once
the goal, it is no longer enough. In the 2020 presidential campaign, vice
presidential candidate Kamala Harris called for this kind of change, saying in a
campaign video about equality that “we should all end up at the same place.”
She argued that if two people had the same opportunity, but began from
different starting points, the results would not be equal. Equality of outcomes
has experienced a renewal of interest during the social justice movements
of the 2020s. For example, Kent State professor of African-American history
Elizabeth M. Smith-Pryor has written that equality of opportunity may have
worked for whites but is a myth for blacks, calling for “equality of results” as “a
more concrete response to our current yet long-standing crisis.”