Affirmative action

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See also Affirmative action:Criticisms and Affirmative action:Wikipedia:4-22-2005

Affirmative action is action affording, to groups considered victims of social discrimination, "preferential" or "equal" (depending on one's point of view) access to an environment or benefits, such as education, employment, health care or social welfare.

This can involve "equal opportunity" hiring and other practices, required demographically-representative (or over/under-representative) diversity in an environment, or other practices that actively prefer members of minority groups. The latter may include racial quotas and lowered performance requirements for applicants belonging to particular racial group(s).

In the United States slavery ended a century and a half ago. The descendents of slaves still do less well economically than white people. Americans feel this is unjust and affirmative action is aimed at preventing this.

Contents

Basis in US Law

In the US Constitution, the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment mandates that no governmental entity burden a person or deny them benefits because they are members of a racial minority (see Constitutional Law, Nowak and Rotunda). The Oxford Desk dictionary defines a racial minority as a smaller number of persons within a political party or structure.

The Johnson administration embraced affirmative action in 1965, by issuing United States Executive Order 11246, later amended by Executive Order 11375. The order, as amended, aims "to correct the effects of past and present discrimination". It prohibits federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, skin color, religion, gender, or national origin. The Order requires that contractors take affirmative action to ensure that "protected class, underutilized applicants" are employed, and that employees are treated without discriminatory regard to their protected class status.

The Order specifically requires certain organizations accepting federal funds to take affirmative action to increase employment opportunities for members of racial minorities and women. Any organization with fifty or more employees and an aggregate revenue exceeding $50,000 from federal contracts during a twelve month period must have a written affirmative action plan. This plan must include goals and timetables for achieving full utilization of women and members of racial minorities, in quotas based on an analysis of the current workforce compared to the availability in the general labor pool of women and members of racial minorities.

The order is enforced by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs of the Employment Standards Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Section 717 of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 require all United States Federal Agencies to implement affirmative employment opportunity programs for all federal employees. EEOC Equal Employment Opportunity Management Directive 715 (MD 715) provides guidance as to how such programs are to be implemented.

In the beginning, racial classifications that only discriminated against racial minorities were inherently suspect and subject to strict scrutiny. These classifications would only be upheld if necessary to promote a compelling governmental interest. Later the US Supreme Court decided that racial classifications that benefited underrepresented minorities were to only be upheld if necessary and promoted a compelling governmental purpose. (See Richmond v. JA Croson Co.)

Individual US States e.g. Missouri also have orders that prohibit discrimination and outline affirmative action requirements with regard to race, creed, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, and disability status.

Implementation in Universities

When underrepresented minorities are actively sought or preferred, the reason given is usually that this is necessary to compensate for advantages to groups such as males or those of European descent from racism, sexism, results of historical circumstances, and institutional racism.

Some dissenters claim that racial preferences have in-effect caused a reverse discrimination against a historically-dominant group (white males in Europe and North America), and liken such preferences to apartheid.

In the US, the most common form of affirmative action centres around access to education, in particular entrance to university and other forms of tertiary instruction. Typically, individuals will have the difficulty of their entrance and/or exam requirements or numerical-maximum/minimum number of student-entries set in relation to what group(s) they belong to, such as their race, ethnicity, native language, class, geographic origin or gender. Individuals can also be awarded scholarships and have fees paid on the basis of the hitherto-listed criteria.

In the United States, affirmative action programs at universities usually benefit only black African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. Asian Americans, although a racial minority, do not benefit at most colleges because their makeup in the student body exceeds their makeup in the general US population. Poor and culturally backward Whites are sometimes benefited if socio-economic status is considered a basis for affirmative action.

Consultations

Another more abstract form of affirmative action is in consultations, whereby institutions such as schools or health-care facilities are declared to be ethnocentric around the majority culture, and therefore consultation with other ethnic groups, especially indigenous groups, are specified as a remedy. This can cause accusations of double-standards, as often in practice representatives of all ethnic groups except the majority group receive consultation on institutional workings. Proponants discount this as being irrelevant, as they claim consultation with the majority group is pointless, as the institution's management is centric around them anyway.

Outside the United States

In those countries outside the US which have laws on racial equality, such as the United Kingdom, affirmative action would be illegal because of a requirement to treat all races equally. This approach of equal treatment is sometimes described as being race-blind. It tends to act against both discrimination and reverse discrimination.

In those countries, the focus tends to be on ensuring equal opportunity and, for example, advertising campaigns to encourage ethnic minority candidates to join the police force.

Opposing Views of Affirmative Action

Main article: Affirmative action:Criticisms

Important US Supreme Court cases

Investigated and outlined in Harvard researcher Shaheen Lakhan's article under the section History and Legal Contex of Affirmative Action of Diversification of U.S. Medical Schools via Affirmative Action Implementation - BMC Medical Education 2003 3:6

The Supreme Court held that the UC Davis medical school admissions program violated the equal protection clause with the institution of quotas for underrepresented minorities. However, the court ruled that race could be one of the factors in university admissions.
The Supreme Court ruled that race could be used as a criterion in school admissions and that it would not be in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The Court found that the University of Michigan Law School's narrowly-tailored policy was constitutional and appropriate "to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."
The Supreme Court ruled that the University of Michigan's point-based undergraduate admissions policy that took race into account numerically was too mechanical and unconstitutional.

See Also

Further Reading

  • Bob Laird, The Case For Affirmative Action In University Admissions, Bay Tree Publishing (March 30, 2005), hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0972002146

External Link

References

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