How is educational fairness like sporting fairness? Re-thinking university admissions through analogous thinking

Legal challenges to affirmative action in college admissions practices are on the rise, in the US and elsewhere. Defenders of the practice tend to point to affirmative action’s efficacy as a means of creating more equal societies, or to the political motivations of those who would stop it. This article takes a different approach. It argues that college admissions procedures are a cultural practice of adjudication, and as such share key attributes with other cultural practices of adjudication, such as sporting and musical competitions. The articles advocates for analogous thinking between these different adjudication sites as a way to understand affirmative action as fundamentally fair. It draws comparisons between affirmative action in college admissions and mechanisms for fair competition in two ‘serious leisure’ sites: crown green bowling competitions, and brass band contests. In so doing, the article argues that affirmative action is not a radical proposition, but one deeply embedded in everyday ideas about fairness.