Affirmative action

Affirmative action is the practice of preferential hiring for minorities to ensure that employees in businesses represent population demographics. In the American business world, there is a growing debate about whether affirmative action is eff ective, or even necessary. This article will concentrate on the history of the affirmative action concept in the United States and illustrate the arguments on each side of the affirmative action debate.

How and Why Did Affirmative Action Begin?

Affirmative action began largely as a result of the African American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The first person to use the term affirmative action was President John F. Kennedy. His goal was to use affirmative action to ensure that the demographics of federally funded positions represented the nation’s racial demographics more proportionately. With the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, eight months after Kennedy was assassinated, affirmative action began to spread to realms outside of government. Title VI of the act stated that “no person . . . shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Title VII laid out exemptions to this law, stating that, under special circumstances, gender, religion, or national origin could be used as a basis for employee selection. This was the beginning of the type of preferential hiring that we now refer to as affirmative action.

FIVE MYTHS ABOUT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Affirmative action only benefits African Americans. Affirmative action is designed for, and applied to, all minority groups, including white women.
Over the last 30 years, affirmative action has clearly leveled the playing field for minority groups. According to one study, although blacks represent approximately 12 percent of the U.S. population, they make up less than 5 percent of the management ranks and considerably less than 1 percent of senior executives (Brief et al. 2002). The disparity is prevalent among gender, too. Women who work full-time throughout the year earn approximately 78 percent as much as men (Stolberg 2009).
Affirmative action costs a lot of white workers their jobs. According to the U.S. government, there are fewer than 2 million unemployed African Americans and more than 100 million employed whites. Considering that affirmative action policies extend to only qualified job applicants, if every unemployed, and qualified, African American took the place of a white worker, less than 1 percent of whites would be affected (“Ten Myths” n.d.).
Affirmative action gives preference to women and people of color based only on their race. No one is ever hired or accepted strictly based on skin color. This practice is prohibited by law.
Once an affirmative action candidate is hired, she has a job for life, no matter how poor her performance. The terms of performance in the workplace are the same for minorities as they are for white men. Often, minorities are expected to contribute more to the workplace than white men due to stereotypes that all minorities in business are hired due to affirmative action.

Other myths surrounding affirmative action are that it was developed as a means to end poverty within certain social groups and that it was designed to make amends for slavery or similar economic hardships placed on various minority groups throughout the history of the United States. It was designed to open the door to a certain minority group’s ability to obtain a foothold in workplaces from which they had consistently been excluded.

Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, was the first to use the term affirmative action in legislation. In Executive Order No. 11,246 (1965), Johnson required federal contractors to use affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin. Johnson also wanted to extend Title VII into realms outside government-financed jobs.

Johnson’s affirmative action was designed to implement institutional change so that American organizations could comply with the Civil Rights Act. The need for this change was based on the following assumptions: (1) white men comprise the overwhelming majority of the mainstream business workforce. Providing moral and legislative assistance to underrepresented minorities is the only way to create a more equal space in the business place. (2) The United States, as the so-called land of opportunity, has enough economic space for all its citizens. (3) Especially after the Civil Rights Act, the government assured itself, and the citizens of the United States, that public policy was the proper mechanism to bring about equality of opportunity. (4) Racial prejudice exists in the workplace, and it adversely aff ects the business and academic worlds’ hiring of minorities. (5) Social and legal coercion is necessary to bring about desired change.

One of the most common misconceptions of affirmative action is that it sanctions quotas based on race or some other essential group category such as gender. It does not. This was affirmed in 1978 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, ruled that racial quotas for college admissions violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, unless they were used to remedy discriminatory practices by the institution in the past. In Bakke, white applicant Allan P. Bakke argued that his application to the University of California, Davis’s Medical School was denied due to the university’s use of quotas to admit a specific number of minority students to the medical school each year. In its highly fractious decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Bakke’s application was rejected because of the quota and ruled quotas unlawful. Muddying the waters, however, was Justice Powell’s diversity rationale in the majority decision. The diversity rationale posited that ethnic and racial diversity can be one of many factors for attaining a heterogeneous student body in places of higher education. Thus, while Bakke struck down sharp quotas, the case created a compelling government interest in diversity.

How Is Affirmative Action Implemented?

Affirmative action requires companies to perform an analysis of minority employment, establish goals to create a more demographically representative workforce, and develop plans to recruit and employ minority employees. For most companies that have eff ective programs, affirmative action extends beyond hiring practices to include maintaining a diverse workforce, periodic evaluations of the affirmative action program, educating and sensitizing employees concerning affirmative action policies, and providing a work environment and management practices that support equal opportunity in all terms and conditions of employment. Many of the biggest companies in the United States today have departments and legal staff s dedicated entirely to ensuring diversity in the workplace.

A multitude of problems inhibit or complicate the enforcement of affirmative action. The bulk of these problems include issues surrounding practices common to the modern business world, stereotypes, and employee preferences. Most of these problems are extremely hard to investigate and often involve serious issues, such as personal relationships or job loss, that make the problem even more complicated.

LEGAL HISTORY OF DIVERSITY IN THE AMERICAN PUBLIC SPHERE

Equal Pay Act of 1963

Requires that men and women workers receive equal pay for work requiring equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and performed under similar working conditions.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Title VI states that “no person . . . shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Title VII laid out exemptions to this law, stating that, under special circumstances, gender, religion, or national origin could be used as basis for employee selection.
Executive Order No. 11,246 (1965) stated that “the head of each executive department and agency shall establish and maintain a positive program of equal employment opportunity for all civilian employees and applicants for employment within his jurisdiction in accordance with the policy set forth in Section 101.”

1978, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

• The U.S. Supreme Court decided that any strictly racial quota system supported by the government violated the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

1980, Fullilove v. Klutznik

• The Supreme Court upheld a federal law mandating that 15 percent of public works funds be set aside for qualified minority contractors.

1986, Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education

• The Court ruled against a school board whose policy it was to lay off nonminority teachers first, before laying off minority teachers.

1995, Adarand Constructors v. Peña

The Court called for “strict scrutiny” to be applied to cases in which past discrimination is alleged, and it required affirmative action programs to be “narrowly tailored” to address specific issues at hand, not broad trends.

1997, California’s Proposition 209

California passed legislation that banned all affirmative action programs in the state.

2003, Gratz and Hamacher/Grutter v. The Regents of the University of Michigan

The Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan’s law school admissions policy, which considered race as a factor.

2009, Ricci v. DeStefano

The Court ruled that (non-minority) firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, were justified in claiming reverse discrimination. The city had thrown out the results of advancement exams because it feared the results would prevent a sufficient number of minority candidates from advancing.

One of the biggest problems facing U.S. companies today is how to handle affirmative action when downsizing. What role should affirmative action play when deciding who is expendable during downsizing? Rarely do companies plan downsizing strategies that include consideration of workforce diversity. When deciding who to downsize, employers have a great number of factors to consider. These factors include race, gender, seniority, tenure with the company, rank, and personal relationships. There is no standard way of dealing with downsizing because each situation, and each employer, is diff erent. Juggling the aforementioned factors while paying attention to the levels of merit between employees now competing for jobs can become incredibly complicated and pressured.

Perhaps the most widespread problem facing eff ective affirmative action practices today is also the hardest to identify and fix and is the most complicated. This problem is commonly referred to as the good old boy factor. The good old boy factor involves nepotism, the employment of friends and family over those who may be more qualified for certain positions. The basic problem behind this type of employment is that the employer’s family and close personal friends most often share the same ethnic background as the employer, thus limiting diversity in certain realms of employment. Ironically, although not termed this, the good old boy factor is, for all eff ective purposes, a form of affirmative action. However, this type of affirmative action does not require any amount of education, experience, competence, or overall job qualifications for employment. The way to handle this problem is to change the employment practices and values of the highest ranking executives in a company. However, because they are the highest ranking executives, they may not have anyone to whom they answer, and their immediate subordinates are often people hired due to their relationships as well. In reality, white men have been hired for years, and continue to be hired, due to racial and personal preferences.

THE GOOD OLD BOY FACTOR

The career of former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael Brown is an example of the good old boy factor at work. Before taking over FEMA, Brown was the judges and stewards commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association (IAHA), from 1989 to 2001. Brown resigned his $100,000-a-year post in 2001 amid scandal. Brown left the IAHA so financially depleted that the organization was forced to merge with the Arabian Horse Registry of America and has since ceased to exist.

Shortly after his dismissal, Brown joined FEMA as general counsel, under the guidance of then FEMA director Joe Allbaugh, who ran President George W. Bush’s 2000 election campaign. When Allbaugh resigned in 2003, Brown, with Allbaugh’s recommendation, became the new head of FEMA, with an annual salary of $148,000.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the city of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, it quickly became one of the most horrific natural disasters to ever affect the United States. The storm killed more than 400 people, displaced approximately one million Gulf Coast residents, cost nearly 400,000 jobs, and caused as much as $200 billion in damage (Katrina 2005). While the storm was obviously beyond human control, the U.S. government, specifically FEMA and Brown, received criticism from across the globe pertaining to its slow response to the storm. Democratic and Republican politicians criticized FEMA and called for Brown’s immediate dismissal. Brown was forced to resign on September 12, 2005, after a significant tragedy in U.S. history.

On September 9, 2005, Time magazine reported that it had found false claims in Brown’s biography on the FEMA Web site. The biography exaggerated previous emergency experience, lied about a teaching award and job status at Central State University, and fabricated a role with the organization known as the Oklahoma Christian Home. Another member of the press, Michelle Malkin (2005), stated that Brown was a “worthless sack of bones. . . . And I don’t care if he has ‘Bush appointee’ stamped on his forehead or a GOP elephant tattooed to his backside. Brown’s clueless public comments after landfall are reason enough to give him the boot . . . and he should never have been there in the first place.” Columnist Russ Baker (2006) wrote that “Michael Brown will forever remain the poster child for federal incompetence” and “it makes absolutely no sense that Michael Brown should have been holding any major government post.” So why did this happen?

The answer is the good old boy factor. Mike Brown and Joe Allbaugh were college roommates and had been friends for decades. Allbaugh served on George Bush’s administration while Bush was the governor of Texas and ran his 2000 presidential campaign. Allbaugh appointed Brown director of FEMA after his resignation from the post, despite Brown reportedly having few supporters within the organization. Instead of relying on credentials, President Bush and long-time political ally Joe Allbaugh hired one of Allbaugh’s old friends, who, despite a misleading résumé and an apparent display of incompetence at his last job, had similar political interests. This is an example of good old boy affirmative action. Mike Brown received his job because of his long-time friendship with the administration, while other potential FEMA administrators were passed over. Good old boy hiring occurs in the business world all the time, and many believe that it is a key factor in inhibiting the objectives of affirmative action.

The Argument against Affirmative Action

Since its inception, affirmative action has constantly faced harsh critics who would like to see the process changed, altered, or disbanded altogether. The critics of affirmative action claim that the practice actually creates unequal hiring practices; is impractical; is unfair to those who, they claim, lose jobs due to the practice; and is even unfair to those who gain employment because they may not be able to do the work. One of the most common misconceptions about those who are against affirmative action is that they are all white conservative men. However, many minorities, even liberal ones, are also opposed to affirmative action, if not as a concept, then to the way it is implemented in the U.S. system. This section will outline some of the major arguments against affirmative action as it is generally applied in the United States today.

The most prevalent argument against affirmative action is that the practice creates reverse discrimination. Those who argue this stance point to Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which was designed to prevent exclusion of minority groups based on race, religion, sex, or national origin. Those who claim reverse discrimination when arguing against affirmative action claim that white men are now victims of discrimination due to their race and sex.

One of the biggest changes in U.S. society over the past 40 years has been the cultural and judicial insistence on civil rights for every citizen. The most famous impetus for this sociological development was the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which produced wide gains in the public sphere for African Americans. Included in these gains was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in public realms such as education, housing, and hiring practices. To many Americans, the treatment that African Americans experienced in this nation until this act was passed was unacceptable and unfair. By enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson created, in many citizens’ eyes, an equal playing ground for African Americans. To them, affirmative action went beyond the means and goals of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was excessive because discrimination was now outlawed by the federal government, and African Americans would be on equal footing with whites.

Furthermore, many argue that affirmative action is unfair because those who lose, supposedly the white majority, and those who gain, supposedly all minority groups, are not all victims of the historical process that created past inequalities. They ask, why should contemporary whites have to pay for the inequalities created by past generations before they were born? At the same time, they ask, why should minorities, specifically African Americans, benefit from the socioeconomically subordinate positions their ancestors held in society? In essence, why should whites pay for discrimination that took place before they were born, and why should contemporary African Americans benefit from the suff ering of their ancestors, which they have never experienced?

One of the most common arguments against affirmative action that comes from minority leaders is that affirmative action turns people into victims. When expecting the government to take care of minorities and give them preferential treatment, individuals tend to act as if the government owes them something. Some do not consider this progress because it tends to alienate historically underprivileged minority groups from mainstream society.

Another part of this argument is that affirmative action taints minorities in the workplace. When minorities are hired for high-level positions, it is automatically assumed that they received their jobs due to affirmative action. This argument basically claims that individual accomplishments by people from minority groups are virtually impossible because of the cloud created by affirmative action. That cloud, they argue, often leads to assumptions that every minority person in the workplace is there because he or she is a minority and that this person took the job of a white man. This creates stereotypes and ineff ective working environments because many minority employees may not be taken seriously.

There are many arguments against affirmative action as we know it today. The arguments are made from various viewpoints and from various political, racial, and economic groups. The opponents of affirmative action are many, and their arguments are multifaceted, with confl icting views prevalent even among would-be allies against this practice.

The arguments for affirmative action are somewhat diff erent and have changed over the course of this practice. As a new type of anti–affirmative action ideology has developed, affirmative action advocates have answered the challenge.

The Argument for Affirmative Action

The historical origins of the argument for affirmative action are obvious. Throughout U.S. history, white men have dominated nearly every aspect of the social landscape. Affirmative action was developed in tandem with civil rights advancements to open more fully opportunities for minority citizens. The arguments supporting affirmative action have now taken the form of debunking myths and exposing truths that indicate problems and misconceptions in the arguments opposing affirmative action.

The biggest and most obvious argument in support of affirmative action challenges the notion of reverse discrimination and beliefs that job markets are closed to whites when competing with minorities. Proponents of affirmative action are quick to point out that, even though minority groups have achieved great gains, they are still underrepresented in the workforce, specifically in white-collar jobs. For example, African Americans and Latinos make up approximately 22 percent of the U.S. labor force. In comparison, they make up only 9 percent of U.S. doctors, 6 percent of lawyers, 7 percent of college professors, and less than 4 percent of scientists ( Jackson 1996). Proponents of affirmative action are quick to point out that the labor force does not mirror an equal employment system. The number of age-eligible employees does not correlate to the percentage employed. If the system was equal, then employment figures should not be as lopsided as they are.

This argument also suggests that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not solve the United States’ racial issues; it simply hid them. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and even today, African American and Latin American U.S. citizens are proportionately poorer than their white counterparts. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 opened spaces in the public sphere, but it did not provide concrete economic or financial means for success among minority groups.

Affirmative action backers also argue that diversity is good for society as a whole. Owing to the hiring, promotion, and economic advancement of minorities, diversity has started to seep into more realms of American life. In essence, diversity is becoming more mainstream than it was in the past. Because of this increased diversity, prejudices held about various minority groups have become less prevalent. Partially due to mainstream diversity, the United States is becoming more culturally affluent and accepting. Prejudice is no longer acceptable in most realms of U.S. society, and affirmative action offices and practices create environments in which diversity is accepted, learned, and experienced.

Pro–affirmative action advocates also argue that affirmative action has helped foster the development of minority role models as more and more minorities enter professional and political positions. Furthermore, their entry has led to the development of a raised consciousness among the American citizenry about issues such as racism, rape, immigration, and poverty that before were invisible to mainstream U.S. society.

Affirmative action advocates argue that, contrary to popular opinion, affirmative action is still necessary. The research being done by advocates shows very clearly that there is still a major discrepancy between the United States’ population demographics and its social and economic characteristics. This discrepancy is most prevalent in the workplace and education, where affirmative action has been used the most. Not only do the advocates back their claims of inequality, they show how, in many ways, minorities in this country are hardly better off than they were when affirmative action was first implemented. They argue that affirmative action measures should be increased because of a lack of eff ectiveness and because of the token affirmative action that many firms use today. For all eff ective purposes, token affirmative action is affirmative action with quotas. In token affirmative action, the quota usually equals one. Companies will hire a token minority and appoint him or her to a public position to eliminate any doubts concerning the organization’s diversity. It is often the case that beyond these token appointments, minority groups are underrepresented in all other sectors of the organization.

Affirmative action advocates have also argued that affirmative action is good for all people involved because it increases workplace diversity and expands traditional ideas. It not only helps individuals obtain positions previously unavailable to them, but it also helps create a broader sense of the world within individuals and within organizations. In essence, it forces people to broaden their horizons.

Conclusion

Affirmative action has become a very controversial topic. Opponents suggest that affirmative action causes reverse discrimination that hurts white men and, in fact, is detrimental to minorities who are placed because of it. Furthermore, they believe that the practice of affirmative action contradicts the basic civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Advocates believe that discrimination still exists and that affirmative action gives minorities a chance to work, which aff ects every aspect of their lives. The debate will continue until minorities are represented in every job class and type.

William M. Sturkey

See also Glass Ceiling; Immigrant Workers

Further Reading

Anderson, Terry H., The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Baker, Russ, Unholy Trinity: Katrina, Allbaugh and Brown. 2006. http://www.russbaker.com
Brief, Arthur P., et al., “Beyond Good Intentions: The Next Steps toward Racial Equality in the American Workplace.” In HRM Reality, ed. W. R. Nord and L. A. Krefting. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Dobbin, Frank, Inventing Equal Opportunity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Jackson, J. L., “People of Color Need Affirmative Action.” In Affirmative Action, ed. A. E. Sadler. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996.
Katrina Numbers Illustrate Storm’s Toll. 2005. http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/32446/story.htm
Katznelson, Ira, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.
Kellough, J. Edward, Understanding Affirmative Action: Politics, Discrimination, and the Search for Justice. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006.
Malkin, Michelle, Not Another Damned Commission. 2005. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003492.htm
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, “Obama Signs Equal Pay Legislation.” New York Times ( January 29, 2009). “Ten Myths about Affirmative Action.” Understanding Prejudice. http://www.understandingprejudice.org/readroom/articles/affirm.htm