Affirmative Action

Legislative attempt to eliminate economic discrimination by ensuring that blacks and other minorities play “on a level playing field.”
Executive Order 10925, issued by President John F. Kennedy, recognized the need for affirmative action. After Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress. On September 24, 1965, Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, which provided for the enforcement of affirmative action, primarily in education and jobs. The federal government attempted to ensure that blacks and other minority groups played on a level playing field when it came to promotions, salaries, school admissions, scholarship, financial assistance, and participation in federal contracts. Although designed as a temporary measure, affirmative action assumed permanency after the introduction of quotas. (Racial quotas required employers to hire a percentage of their workers on the basis of race.)
Affirmative action’s goals were met better in the educational realm than in the workplace. Colleges and universities reserved a specific number of positions for disadvantaged minorities, including women, under the quota system. As a result, some white males who qualified received rejection notices. In 1978, Allan Bakke sued the University of California for accepting less-qualified students to its medical school while refusing to accept him for two years in a row. In the landmark case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that the inflexible quota system violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act because it engaged in reverse discrimination. In 1986, the Court heard a second case, Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, in which the justices ruled that white men could not be dismissed to make room for women or minority employees. The following year the Court heard United States v. Paradise and issued an opinion that allowed for a one-forone promotion requirement—for every white male promoted, one minority employee must be promoted.
The debate over affirmative action continued through the 1990s. The federal government initiated programs that would economically support small businesses owned by women or minority groups. Employers attempted to achieve a reasonable diversity among employees without the rigid quotas. Congress even tried, unsuccessfully, to pass an affirmative action amendment to the Constitution, but the measure was defeated in 1979 by a 171 to 249 margin. Affirmative action has achieved some limited success—more women and minorities have reached senior-level positions, and student bodies in universities and colleges have become diverse.
Currently the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing two cases concerning affirmative action—Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger—involving admission requirements or quotas used by the University of Michigan law school. The outcome of these cases will decide the future direction of affirmative action.

References
Altschiller, Donald, ed. Affirmative Action. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1991.
Cahn, Steven, ed. The Affirmative Action Debate. New York: Routledge, 2002.
See also Civil Rights Movement.