Equal opportunity is a stipulation that all people should be treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers or prejudices or preferences, except when particular “distinctions can be explicitly justified.” The aim according to this often "complex and contested concept" is that important jobs should go to those “most qualified” – persons most likely to perform ably in a given task – and not go to persons for arbitrary or irrelevant reasons, such as circumstances of birth, upbringing, friendship ties to whoever is in power, religion, sex, ethnicity, race, caste, or “involuntary personal attributes” such as disability, age, or sexual preferences. Chances for advancement should be open to everybody interested such that they have “an equal chance to compete within the framework of goals and the structure of rules established.”
The idea is to remove arbitrariness from the selection process and base it on some “pre-agreed basis of fairness, with the assessment process being related to the type of position,” and emphasizing procedural and legal means. Individuals should succeed or fail based on their own efforts and not "extraneous circumstances" such as having well-connected parents. It is opposed to nepotism and plays a role in whether a social structure is seen as legitimate.
Read more about Equal Opportunity: Differing Political Viewpoints, Criticism
Famous quotes containing the words equal opportunity, equal and/or opportunity:
“The root of the discontent in American women is that they are too well educated.... There will be no real content among American women unless they are made and kept more ignorant or unless they are given equal opportunity with men to use what they have been taught. And American men will not be really happy until their women are.”
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973)
“A sub-clerk in the post-office is the equal of a conqueror if consciousness is common to them.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“If the children and youth of a nation are afforded opportunity to develop their capacities to the fullest, if they are given the knowledge to understand the world and the wisdom to change it, then the prospects for the future are bright. In contrast, a society which neglects its children, however well it may function in other respects, risks eventual disorganization and demise.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)