We’ve got a diversity initiative on campus currently, and so I’ve been thinking a lot about “affirmative action for white guys.” You start to notice it when bits of bad behavior that come from some people are tolerated more than bits of bad behavior that come from others. A colleague has coined the phrase “gentle sexism.” But some of the bad behavior isn’t as gentle as shirking your duties or exerting a kind of “oopsie, look what I did” male privilege. Yet a look at some darker forms of it can put our irritation about lighter forms of it into perspective.

The Milwaukee/Vatican case is the most recent of escalating revelations of what affirmative action for white guys looks like. We learned this week that the Vatican and Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) suppressed prosecution of a priest, Lawrence Murphy, in a case where “as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran” a school for deaf children (as described by the Associated Press). Oi vey.

The news coverage explains how, despite efforts to prosecute Murphy, the Vatican office in charge of this mess–headed at the time by Ratzinger–“axed” it. By the time the investigation finally came around, the Vatican was convinced, Murphy was old, ailing, and only wanted to live out the rest of his life in the “dignity of the priesthood.” Christian compassion prevailed—by which I mean compassion for Murphy.

Though the actions of the “victimizers” in the church cases are heinous, and appear with the accumulation of evidence to be endemic (see the documentary Holy Watergate [2005] for one of many accounts; and see Andrew Sullivan on the distinction between “sin” and “crime”), I wonder what makes the tolerance of this possible?

But here’s the deal: I don’t think it is exceptional. I think tolerance of these outrageous sex abuse cases is on a continuum of a practice of affirmative action for white guys. The Vatican’s forgiveness in case after case, in the interest of “human dignity,” doesn’t extend to a whole host of people, like women or gays or people who are pro-choice or whatever. Church leaders find that it feels okay, passes muster within their community of other white guys, to engage in affirmative action for white guys. It feels comfortable. It makes sense.

There are lots more examples, small and large. The Vatican’s actions remind me of the wild tolerance we have had for the current financial meltdown, really our financial “scandal.” It feels okay to give the boys on Wall Street a pass (there are girls on Wall Street too! I know!)–they are “elite for a reason”—and other elites understand this. Even though they got it wrong, they have something special, and they couldn’t be dishonest because they are one of us.

So the thing that unites the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and the financial scandal in Wall Street is the way that bad behavior from some is tolerated. There is continuity between the logic of the “dignity” that Joseph Ratzinger wanted to grant Murphy, and the logic used by Tim Geithner when he made decisions and promoted policies as if bankers would never be “too greedy” or unlawful. Here’s the thing that blows my mind: the hallmark of affirmative action for white guys isn’t just giving extra consideration for a protected class for the same behavior as others. It is about giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming the best even with clear and convincing evidence of the worst.

Lighter forms of this–every day gentle sexism, for example–are worth being more wary of than we typically are. That irritation is for good cause.

-Virginia Rutter