Description
This simulation challenges students to confront the political and moral complexity of equitable distribution. Participants are placed on a task force at your university charged with allocating $1 million to address a campus issue of their choosing. Drawing on Deborah Stone’s chapters on Equity and Numbers in Policy Paradox, students must determine how to define the problem, select criteria for distribution, and justify their allocation decisions. The exercise highlights how classification, thresholds, measurement, and competing definitions of fairness shape policy outcomes. Students must not only design an equitable distribution plan but also develop an evaluation strategy using numbers to defend their decisions. During class debate, peers challenge their criteria, assumptions, and measurement strategies, requiring participants to revise or defend their approach. The goal is to move students beyond abstract commitments to fairness and toward a concrete understanding of how equity is constructed, contested, and measured in real policy settings.
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Topic
- Leading with Integrity, Public Ethics
Resource Type
- Interactive Exercise or Project
Time Commitment
- 1–2 Hours
Materials Needed
None just a paper with the exercise on each table
Recommended or Required Reading
· Stone, D. (2012). Equity. In Policy paradox: The art of political decision making (3rd ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.
· Stone, D. (2012). Numbers. In Policy paradox: The art of political decision making (3rd ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.
Additional Information
Modifying the Exercise
This exercise can be adapted across disciplines and institutional contexts. The funding amount may be adjusted, or students may be assigned a specific policy domain (e.g., housing, student health, climate initiatives, public safety). Instructors may constrain distribution criteria, require competing task forces to address the same issue, or introduce additional political pressures such as stakeholder opposition or limited data. The evaluation component can be expanded to include quantitative metrics, qualitative assessment, or competing measurement frameworks. The activity works in small seminars or large lectures by scaling the number of task forces. Online formats may use breakout rooms and shared documents. The central learning objective remains constant: to reveal how definitions of equity and the use of numbers structure political decisions.