Affirmative Action
Affirmative action works. There are thousands of examples of situations
where
people of color, white women, and working class women and men of all
races who
were previously excluded from jobs or educational opportunities, or
were denied
opportunities once admitted, have gained access through
affirmative action. When
these policies received executive branch and
judicial support, vast numbers of
people of color, white women and men have
gained access they would not otherwise
have had. These gains have led to very
real changes. Affirmative action programs
have not eliminated racism, nor
have they always been implemented without
problems. However, there would be
no struggle to roll back the gains achieved if
affirmative action policies
were ineffective. The implementation of affirmative
action was America's
first honest attempt at solving a problem, it had
previously chosen to
ignore. In a variety of areas, from the quality of health
care to the rate of
employment, blacks still remain far behind whites. Their
representation in
the more prestigious professions is still almost
insignificant. Comparable
imbalances exist for other racial and ethnic
minorities as well as for women.
Yet, to truly understand the importance of
affirmative action, one must look
at America's past discrimination to see why,
at this point in history, we
must become more "color conscious".
History Of Discrimination In America:
Events Leading To Affirmative Action. The
Declaration of Independence
asserts that "all men are created equal."
Yet America is scarred by a
long history of legally imposed inequality. Snatched
from their native land,
transported thousands of miles-in a nightmare of disease
and death-and sold
into slavery, blacks in America were reduced to the legal
status of farm
animals. A Supreme Court opinion, Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857),
made this
official by classifying slaves as a species of "private
property." Even after
slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in
1865, American
blacks, other minorities, and women continued to be deprived of
some of the
most elementary right of citizenship. During the Reconstruction,
after the
end of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1868,
making
blacks citizens and promised them the "equal protection of the
laws." In 1870
the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, which gave blacks the
right to vote.
Congress also passed a number of civil rights laws barring
discrimination
against blacks in hotels, theaters, and other places. However,
the South
reacted by passing the "Black Codes, " which severely
limited the rights of
the newly freed slaves, preventing them in most states
from testifying in
courts against whites, limiting their opportunities to find
work, and
generally assigning them to the status of second or third class
citizen.
White vigilante groups like the Klu Klux Klan began to appear, by
murdering
and terrorizing blacks who tried to exercise their new rights.
"Legal" ways
were also found for circumventing the new laws; these
included "grandfather
clauses", poll taxes, white only primary
elections, and constant social
discrimination against and intimidation of
blacks, who were excluded form
education and from any job except the most
menial. In 1883, the Supreme Court
declared a key civil rights statute, one that
prohibits discrimination in
public accommodations, unconstitutional. And in
1896, Plessy v. Ferguson
(163 U.S. 537 [1896]), the Court declared that the
state of Louisiana had the
right to segregate their races in every public
facility. Thus began the
heyday of "Jim Crow" legislation. In Justice
John Marshall Harlan's lone
dissent, he realized it was a mockery. He wrote,
" We boast of the freedom
enjoyed by our peoples above all other peoples.
But it is difficult to
reconcile that boast with a state of the law which,
practically, puts a brand
of servitude and degregation upon a large class of our
fellow citizens, our
equals before the law. This thin disguise of 'equal'
accommodations for
passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead anyone, or
atone for the
wrong this day done." Not until sixty years later, in Brown
v. Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas (347 U.S. 483 [1954]), was Plessy
overturned.
Chief Justice earl Warren declared the unanimous opinion of the
court by
saying: "We cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment
was
adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson was written." In
today's
world, "separate educational facilities are inherently
unequal." This
decision sparked racial tensions all across America. in
1957, President
Eisenhower had to call federal troops into Little Rock,
Arkansas, after
the state's governor forcibly barred black children from
entering white
schools. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested and fined, for not
moving to the
back of a public bus, setting a pattern of boycotts by black of
bus
companies. And a number of "sit in" were being held by blacks in
still
segregated restaurants in the South. Responding to those and other
incidents,
Congress passed a variety of new laws, including the Civil Rights Act
of
1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
The
Civil Rights Act of 1964, particularly titles VI and VII, seem to
prohibit any
form of racial discrimination. Affirmative action existed in
obscurity for years
before current-day affirmative action was executed after
President Lyndon B.
Johnson signed Executive Order 11246. As conceived,
current day affirmative
action was to promote greater equality of opportunity
by expanding access and
increasing inclusiveness. President Johnson, in his 4
June 1964 commencement
speech at Howard University, addressed the motivation
behind Executive Order
11246, which he signed into law a few months after
this speech. He said,
"You do not take a person who, for years, has been
hobbled by chains and
liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a
race and then say, 'You are
free to compete with all the others' and still
justly believe that you have been
completely fair." Adding, he said that the
U.S. must have "not just
equality as a right and a theory but equality as a
fact and equality as a
result." (Pinkerton, James P. "Ending Quotas Should
Help End
Racism" in Los Angeles Times, 4 June 1995, p. M5) In 1969, the
Department
of Labor exposed widespread racial discrimination of the
Construction Department
so President Richard M. Nixon decided to incorporate
a system of "goals and
timetables" to evaluate federal construction companies
according to
affirmative action. This idea of "goals and timetables"
provided
guidelines for companies to follow and comply with affirmative
action
regulations. During the presidency of Gerald R. Ford, he extended
affirmative
action to people with disabilities and Vietnam veterans but there
were no goals
or timetables for these two groups. This type of affirmative
action required
recruitment efforts, accessibility, accommodation and reviews
of physical and
mental job qualifications. President Jimmy Carter
consolidated all federal
agencies that were required by law to follow the
affirmative action play into
the Department of Labor. Before Carter did this,
each agency handled affirmative
action in its own individual way, some were
not as consistent as other agencies
were. He created the Office of Federal
Contract Compliance Program (OFCCP) in
1978 to ensure compliance with the
affirmative action policies. The first
Supreme Court case to directly
deal with affirmative action was Regents of
California v. Bakke (438 U.S.
265 [1978]). Alan Bakke, a white male, was turned
down for admission, even
though his test scores and grades were higher that
those of some candidates
admitted through a "special" program. Bakke
argued that he was a victim of
reverse discrimination because he was white. Four
members of the Supreme
Court took the view that admission to a state medical
school must be on a
completely "color blind" basis; another four
contended that "a racial
criteria may be used by a state for the purpose of
overcoming the chronic
minority underrepresentation in the medical
profession." The remaining
justice, Lewis Powel, had the controlling
opinion in the case. Powell agreed
in part with both sides. He believed that a
"legitimate justification might
exist for using race as a criterion in
medical school admission," yet he
opposed "explicit" racial
classifications. Another landmark case about
affirmative action was United
Steelworkers of America v. Weber (433 U.S.
193 [1979]). Unlike Bakke, Weber
deals with a private company who voluntarily
creates a affirmative action
policy. Brian Weber, a white worker, was passed
over for admission to a training
program in favor for a black worker less
seniority. He bought suit under Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964. The Supreme Court ruled against Weber on
two grounds: 1) the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 was aimed at relieving the plight
of blacks, not whites 2)
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "did not intend
wholly to prohibit private and
voluntary affirmative action efforts."
Affirmative action began to go
downhill when Ronald Reagan and later George Bush
came into office.
Affirmative action lost some gains it had made and was more or
less ignored
by the Republicans in the White House and in Congress. Affirmative
action was
silently being "killed" by our federal administrators. But
among this
destruction there was one positive aspect, the passage of Americans
with
Disabilities Act of 1990. Finally to the Presidency of Bill Clinton.
The
Republicans are attempting to scare people into changing their party
lines by
misusing affirmative action. They are saying that affirmative action
is nothing
more than a quota or reverse discrimination. President Clinton
supports
affirmative action, but he clearly states: "I'm against quotas. I'm
against
reverse discrimination. I'm against giving anybody unqualified
anything they're
not qualified for. But I am for making a conscious effort to
bring the American
people together." (Speech on September 4, 1995, quoted by
Michael K. Frisby,
Wall Street Journal, September 6, 1995, p. A4).
Further, President Clinton
added: The purpose of affirmative action is to
give our nation a way to finally
address the systemic exclusion of
individuals of talent, on the basis of their
gender or race, from
opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute.
Affirmative
action is an effort to develop a systematic approach to open the
doors of
education, employment, and business development opportunities to
qualified
individuals who happen to be members of groups that have
experienced
long-standing and persistent discrimination. (New York Times,
"Excerpts
From Clinton Talk on Affirmative Action" July 20, 1995, p. A9).
Affirmative
Action Today. Affirmative action has had its greatest amount
of success in city,
state, and government jobs. Since the 1960s the area of
law enforcement
witnessed the greatest increase in minority applicants, and
in jobs offered to
minorities. This should be viewed as an extremely positive
thing, because prior
to affirmative action these jobs were almost completely
closed off to minorities
and woman. The influx has been greatest in the area
of government, state and
city, because this type of work is easier for
affirmative action to watch over
and regulate. Affirmative action has
experienced considerably less success in
integration in big business. This is
do to the fact that big business has been
more resistant to affirmative
action and harder to regulate. I believe that
increasing minority and female
applicant flow would be very easy for a company
to do. They simply need to
include minority colleges and universities in campus
recruitment programs,
place employment opportunities in minority oriented print
and broadcast
media, and retain applications of unhired minority applicants to
be reviewed
as a position opens. This would be a great opportunity for
applicants and
employers. Affirmative action is also needed to help black women
to compete
in today's corporate world. Black women in corporate America are
still
scarce: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistic's report for 1984,
among
the classification "executive, administrative, managerial, and
professional,
specialty," there were only 1,474,000 black women 5.9% of the
total, as
opposed to 22,250,000 white women, 91% of the total number of working
women
in this category (Cyrus, Virginia. Experiencing Race, Class, and Gender
in
the United States. Second Edition. 1997. p. 122). Another area
affirmative
action addresses is preferential hiring programs. Many times
people of color
have been excluded from hiring pools, overtly discriminated
against, unfairly
eliminated because of inappropriate qualification
standards, or have been
rendered unqualified because of discrimination in
education and housing. Court
decisions on affirmative action have rendered
illegal those qualifications that
are not relevant to one's ability to do the
job. They have also mandated hiring
goals so that those employed begin to
reflect the racial mix of the general
population from which workers are
drawn. There is no legal requirement to ever
hire an unqualified person.
There is a mandate that in choosing between
qualified candidates, the hiring
preference should be for a person of color when
past discrimination has
resulted in white people receiving preferential
treatment. Sometimes people
and companies argue that affirmative action means
the best qualified person
will not be hired. However, it has been demonstrated
many times in hiring and
academic recruitment that test and educational
qualifications are not
necessarily the best predictors of future success. This
does not mean
unqualified people should be hired. It means basically qualified
people who
may not have the highest test scores or grades, but who are ready to
do the
job may be hired. Employers have traditionally hired people not only on
test
scores, but on personal appearance, family and personal connections,
school
ties and on race and gender preferences, demonstrating that talent
or
desirability can be defined in many ways. These practices have all
contributed
to a segregated work force where whites hold the best jobs, and
people of color
work in the least desirable and most poorly paid positions.
Affirmative action
policies serve as a corrective to such patterns of
discrimination. They keep
score on progress toward proportional
representation and place the burden of
proof on organizations to show why it
is not possible to achieve it. Opponents
of affirmative action want to see
the "most qualified" people be
hired, regardless of sex, race, age, etc.
However, a person's experience should
be taken into consideration during the
hiring process and if certain groups are
blocked from competeing, when they
are finally allowed to compete they may have
every other qualification, but
will lack what they were blocked at competeing in
the first place (Cyrus, p.
265). While companies continue to permit
discrimination in the hiring process
they are overlooking a very staggering
reality. According to a Workforce 2000
study by the Hudson Institute for the
U.S. Department of Labor., it is
estimated that 85% of the 26 million net new
American workers in this
decade will consist of women, minorities, and
immigrants. The companies that
refuse to share power with those discriminated
against may be shooting
themselves in the foot, compared to the companies who
choose and promote a
more diversified workforce {Cyrus, p. 463). Another
argument raised against
affirmative action is that individual white people,
often white males, have
to pay for past discrimination and may not get the jobs
they deserve. It is
true that specific white people may not get specific job
opportunities
because of affirmative action policies and may suffer as a result.
This
lack of opportunity is unfortunate; the structural factors which produce
a
lack of decent jobs needs to be addressed. It must not be forgotten
that
millions of specific people of color have also lost specific job
opportunities
as a result of racial discrimination. To be concerned only with
the white
applicants who don't get the job, and not with the people of color
who don't, I
believe, is also showing racial preference. But how true is it
that white male
candidates are being discriminated against or are losing out
because of
affirmative action programs? If one looks at the composition of
various
professions such as law, medicine, architecture, academics and
journalism, or at
corporate management, or at higher-level government
positions or if one looks
overall at the average income levels of white men
one immediately notices that
people of color are still significantly
underrepresented and underpaid in every
category. People of color don't make
up the proportions of these jobs even
remotely equal to their percentage of
the population. They don't earn wages
comparable to white men. White men are
tremendously overrepresented in almost
any category of work that is highly
rewarded except for professional athletics.
According to a 1995
government report, white males make up only 29 percent of
the workforce, but
they hold 95 percent of senior management positions (Sklar,
Holly. Chaos
or Community?:Seeking Solutions, Not Scapegoats for Bad
Economics.Boston.
South End Press. 1995. p. 115). Until there is both equal
opportunity and
fair distribution of education, training and advancement to
all
Americans, affirmative action for people of color will be necessary
to counter
the hundreds of years of affirmative action that has been directed
at white
males. It cannot reasonably be argued that white males are
discriminated against
as a group if they are overrepresented in most high
status categories.
Affirmative action is not a cure all. It will not
eliminate racial
discrimination, nor will it eliminate competition for scarce
resources.
Affirmative action programs can only ensure that everyone has
a fair chance at
what is available. I believe, the larger question should be
to ask is why are
there not enough decent paying, challenging and safe jobs
for everyone? Why are
there not enough seats in the universities for everyone
who wants an education?
Expanding opportunity for people of color means
expanding not only their access
to existing jobs, education and housing , but
also removing the obstacles that
cause them from obtaining their goals. I
believe, affirmative action is the best
shot they have in order to achieve
their dreams.