Abstract

Adler's discussion of university affirmative action is driven by two contradictory imperatives: a commitment to the objectivity of truth and a desire to preserve communal structures which have been threatened by the process of rationalization associated with the notion of universal truth. He focuses on the extent to which the rationalization described by Weber has destroyed traditional and communal structures and asks whether the university or affirmative action accelerates or inhibits this destruction. His objection to affirmative action is predicated on a defense of the non-bureaucratic structure of the university as antithetical to the type of homogenization and politicization implied by affirmative action.