“Equality” is among Americans’ favorite buzzwords, along with “freedom” and “liberty”. The Founding Fathers themselves said that all men are created equal. Americans, particularly socioeconomically privileged white Americans, like to think of their country as one of equal opportunity, one where any people regardless of whatever category they fit into can be financially successful (whether or not that is actually the case is debatable). Whenever we perceive inequality, we get riled up and protest it.

This is normally a good thing. Fairness is a virtue. Yet there are times when the word “equal” has been used wrongly. In these circumstances, people argue for treating things as equal when they really are not equal.

Take the question of whether creationism (“intelligent design” in this age of euphemisms) should be taught in science classes as a competing hypothesis to the theory of evolution. Some people say that creationism and the theory of evolution should receive “equal treatment” in the classroom. It’s only fair, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, it isn’t. The theory of evolution is a theory backed up by evidence from multiple scientific disciplines, such as genetics, biology, and paleontology. Creationism is a bunch of old myths told by pre-scientific people to explain natural phenomena they didn’t understand. The scientific evidence does not support, and in fact usually contradicts, the claims of creationism. To claim that that creationism and the theory of evolution (or any other modern theory or law that contradicts creationism) should be treated equally is not fair, because they are not equally valid.

Another example of people wrongfully claiming for equal treatment concerns ethnic preferences in hiring. Suppose, for instance, you have two job applicants. Their qualifications for the job are identical, but one comes from a socially stigmatized ethnic group (e.g. blacks or Native Americans), whereas the other comes from a socially dominant ethnic group (e.g. whites). Some people claim that there should be no preference in choosing which applicant gets hired. This is understandable, but realize that the two applicants are not on equal footing here. Most likely the applicant from the stigmatized group has had a harder time looking for a job than his competitor, because of society’s stigma against him. Therefore, I would give the job to the applicant from the stigmatized group, because he has suffered more than the applicant from the socially dominant group. Race has nothing to do with it; if white people were socially stigmatized and blacks and Native Americans were socially dominant, I would favor a white applicant over an equally qualified black or Native American applicant. Would it be unequal treatment? Yes. But it is fair. It would be unfair to treat the two applicants as if they stood on equal ground when they don’t.

My point is that fairness does not always mean treating two things as if they were the same. It is unfair to assume that a scientifically supported theory is only as valid as obsolete mythology. It is unfair to assume that an oppressed person is only as deserving of compassion as a privileged person. Real fairness is when you treat things as they should be treated, not when you always treat things as if they were equal.