Affirmative Action as Racial Discrimination

Affirmative Action as Racial Discrimination
The controversy over affirmative action is growing to embody most all selective decisions in American society. From public protection to college admissions, people are becoming resentful of such affirmative action programs. The applicability of these programs in today's American society has been challenged by people ranging from the everyday "Joe", who is finding reverse discrimination in the workplace, to college applicants, who are finding that it takes more than good grades to get admitted, to the Supreme Court, who is finding that some college admissions policies are unconstitutional and promote diversity through unfair means. In California, for example, Gov. Pete Wilson has already pushed an initiative ending affirmative action practices in colleges and universities. The initiative passed, after a 10-hour meeting, through The California Board of Reagents with a 10-15 vote. in Michigan, the state legislature is conducting hearings on the "fairness" of affirmative action. David Jaye, a Republican member of the Michigan State legislature, said affirmative action creates economic imbalances within the system. Affirmative action policies are means for reverse discrimination against the non-minority population and should be repealed by the United States government.
The phrase "affirmative action" was first used in a racial discrimination context in Executive Order No. 10,925 issued by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 (Brown). This executive order indicated that federal contractors should take affirmative action to ensure that job applicants and employees are treated "without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin"(Brown). Kennedy's executive order implied equal opportunity and nothing else. The system that has since evolved is a perversion of the original intent of affirmative action.
The dynamic history of affirmative action has its roots in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and stems from the United States Supreme Court Case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order #11246 at Howard University that required federal contractors to undertake affirmative action to increase the number of minorities that they employ (Brown). He wanted to ensure that minorities were recruited to have real and equal opportunity to be hired and then eventually get a promotion.
When this Civil Rights Act was passed, its spirit was not one of reverse discrimination but of getting employers to consider applicants objectively in filling jobs within their companies. Hubert Humphrey, a major sponsor of the Act, swore that he would eat the bill if it were ever used for discrimination of any sort. The past cannot be changed and we should stop compensating people who were never hurt at the expense of people who have done them no harm.
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 (Brown). Many companies now use these quotas in order to receive tax breaks from the government. Now the government not only promotes discrimination but also pays the employers to do so.
During the presidency of Gerald R. Ford, affirmative action was expanded 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 (Brown). This legislation did wonders for the disabled in terms of jobs and promoted equality so that even the handicapped and elderly could receive employment.
President Jimmy Carter consolidated all federal agencies that were required by law to follow affirmative action into the Department of Labor (Brown). Before Carter did this, each agency handled affirmative action in its own individual way. However, some were not as consistent as other agencies. He created the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program (OFCCP) in 1978 to ensure compliance with the affirmative action policies (Brown).
Affirmative action has had its greatest amount of success in city, state, and federal government jobs. Slowly, the minority employment levels in these jobs began to generally mirror the relative minority population. 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, such as General Motors, RJR Nabisco, and Microsoft. This is do to the fact that big business' often employ entire towns or regions so the minority employee percentage is generally representative the town's minority population. This is why big business has been more resistant to affirmative action and harder to regulate (Ryan 37).
Long ago, the government sanctioned these affirmative action policies in order to create an equal opportunity for people of all races. In a time when an obvious discriminatory attitude toward minorities could be felt, affirmative action came to the rescue and helped to push equality and equal opportunity. Minorities could get jobs because they deserved them and the government as much. In today's society, discrimination is less prevalent than in the 1970's. People are generally tolerant of one another and can coexist without butting heads. To those who would disagree, here are some data: 75% of black Americans say they have never suffered from discrimination in getting a quality education; 73% say that they have never been subject to discrimination in getting descent housing; 60% say they have never suffered discrimination in getting a job. These data are taken from a 1995 ABC News/Washington Post poll (Williams). As for females, 77% say they have never suffered from discrimination in terms of salaries on their present jobs; 73% have never suffered so in other places of employment; and 83% say they were never turned down for a job in favor of a man. These are from a 1992 New York Times Women's Survey (Quigly).
In California, the issue of affirmative action is one of the most controversial. Asian students at the University of California's Berkley campus were felt to be over-represented due to their outstanding academic performance and were actually placed at a disadvantage under certain affirmative action programs (Bresler). In Los Angeles County, affirmative action goals were raised for Hispanics, who, as a result of immigration, have become almost 40% of the county, and lowered for blacks who represent 12% of the population and have 30% of the county jobs (Bresler). Due to this inequality of representation, new tensions have risen between the two groups.
Previous to the passing of the California initiative named Proposition 209 in November 1996, Californian government agencies were pushed to employ reasonably skilled minorities and essentially required to make contracts almost exclusively with minority-owned businesses (Ayres). This type of hiring and contracting quietly removed non-minority-owned businesses from being in contention for receiving a government contract. As a result, a lawsuit was filed against the state of California alleging that this form of public contracting violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and should be seen as reverse discrimination against non-minorities (Ayres). The man who filed the lawsuit won, and the policies, which govern such public contracting, have since been amended. In this instance, it was clearly seen that a preference toward certain minority groups was established and implemented, causing essentially the blacklisting of non-minority-owned businesses in the state of California. This type of behavior is what can be classified as reverse discrimination, or discrimination primarily directed at Anglo and Asian American that is generally the result of affirmative action polices.
Another instance where affirmative action was implemented without good reason occurred in the town of Piscataway Township, NJ ("A Blow to"). In this case, the Board of Education needed to lay off one teacher from the high school business faculty. The choice was narrowed down to Debra Williams, a black woman, or Sharon Taxman, who is white. Both teachers had begun working on the same day in 1980 and were considered equal in ability. The two were also judged equal with respect to work performance, certification, evaluations, teaching ability and volunteerism ("A Blow to").
Rather than flip a coin, as was traditionally done, the Board of Education invoked a statewide affirmative action policy, for the first and only time in 18 years and retained Mr. Williams (Greenhouse). Board members reasoned that it was important, not only for the students, but also for the faculty, to maintain diversity on the business education staff ("A Blow to"). Ms. Taxman sued under the Civil Right Act of 1964 and, with the support of the Bush Administration's Justice Department, won in a Federal district court (Greenhouse). By the time the case reached the Federal appeals court, which is based in Philadelphia, the Clinton Administration was in office. The White House switched positions and argued that the school system could take race into account in determining which teacher to retain. The Administration argued that the lower court ruling excessively obstructed voluntary affirmative action programs ("A Blow to").
This argument fell on deaf ears as the appeals court voted 8-to-4 and upheld the lower court's decision ("A Blow to"). The majority found that under the law, race could be considered in hiring and layoffs to remedy past discrimination. But Piscataway's schools had never been found guilty of discrimination and, other than the business faculty, there was no evidence that minorities were underrepresented among teachers in the high school or the district. With this considered, the majority held that favoring the black individual was illegal race discrimination ("A Blow to"). Even though the goal in this case was to maintain diversity, the majority said that maintaining diversity could only be justified to correct past discrimination or a severe imbalance in the teaching force.
Affirmative Action uses reverse discrimination to solve the problem of discrimination. In that, it promotes the hiring of less skilled workers: the employers have to choose from the best available employee from the minorities, instead of having the possibility to choose simply the best available employee. This bothers employers as well as employees who do not qualify for Affirmative Action; the employers feel they ended up with a lesser quality worker. Every employee from a minority that benefits from Affirmative Action bears a mark of "not being the best pick, but only the best pick from a limited group", even if the person was selected for being the best available on the complete job market. The bypassed employees feel tricked by the government or the minority. The last could fire up racism among the bypassed group, while affirmative action was introduced to decrease racism.
In the spring of 1996, a Federal court handed down a decision that helped to tip the constitutional scales. In Hopwood vs. Texas, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit struck down an affirmative action program adopted by the University of Texas Law School that set lower minimum standards for Law School Admissions Tests (LSAT) and grade-point averages for blacks and Mexican-American applicants than for other groups (Bresler). The court ordered, under penalty of punitive damages, to adopt a colorblind admissions policy immediately. Judge Jerry Smith, speaking for the Fifth Circuit, said, "the use of race to achieve a diverse student body can not be a state interest compelling enough to meet the steep standard of steep standard of strict scrutiny. Within the general principles of the Fourteenth Amendment, the use of race in admissions for diversity in higher education contradicts, rather than furthers, the aims of equal protection" (qtd. in Bresler). This argument shows that while trying to produce diversity within a college, corporation or factory, one can do more harm and create deeper chasms to form between to races.
Affirmative action does provide people from certain minorities with a job they would not have gotten. But if, after reading all the above, one could think of the quality of this job, in surroundings hostile towards the minority the employee is from, one could seriously doubt the fact whether this employee is happy with this job. It is better than no job, but that is about it. This same feeling can probably be applied to college students as well.
Colleges and universities frequently also have quotas for how many blacks it is necessary to admit to "round out" their freshman classes. An example is the admission practices at Berkeley. Only 40 per cent of the entering class in 1988 were selected solely on the basis of academic merit. While whites or Asian-Americans need at least a 3.7 grade point average in high school to be considered for admission, most minority candidates who meet a lower fluctuating standard are automatically admitted (Shea). Berkeley continues this practice of preferential admissions for minorities even though the graduation rate of minorities is very low. Expectedly, 66 per cent of whites or Asian-Americans graduate, while only 27 per cent of black students graduate (Shea).
In the state of Michigan, Jennifer Gratz, a high school graduate who finished 13th out of her class of 298 with a 3.7 G.P.A. and a 25 (out of 36) on the ACT, filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan (Reibstein). The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor turned down Gratz, who is white, for admission, even though minorities with the same or lesser credentials were admitted. To prove her point, her lawyers say that they have uncovered confidential documents that explicitly spell out Michigan's biased admissions policy. Gratz says "they are using race as a factor for admissions by weeding out students that aren't of that minority race" (qtd. in Reibstein). The documents, most of which simply have an intersecting grid of minimum accepted academic values that are classified into 2 columns: white and minority, show a clear bias by allowing the minimum academic values, such as the ACT or high school G.P.A., to be lowered for the minority groups. Here is one example: for a white student with a 3.7 G.P.A. (out of 4.0) and an SAT of 1,250 (out of 1,600) would be placed on the waiting list while a minority with the same numbers would be admitted. Terence Pell, a lawyer for the Center for Individual rights says that "this plan invokes the naked use of racial bias just for the sake of a certain racial mix" (qtd. in Reibstein). By the University's admissions office standard, non-minority applicants must excel past their already high scores and even then there is not a slight guarantee that these scores will not be undermined by the admissions policy. The University of Michigan has created an unequal system where young, bright, non-minorities are discriminated against because their academic values are simply too high. This is the essence of reverse discrimination and its correlation to affirmative action.
The most qualified individuals must succeed in modern day American society in an effort to promote competitiveness and the capitalistic theory that all are given an equal chance to achieve the "American dream." The existence of affirmative action policies and quotas has prevented these efforts from flourishing. Furthermore, affirmative action creates unwanted race distinctions. As a nation devoted to equality, the United States must do away with these unproductive race-dividing policies. By eliminating them, Americans can take major steps in promoting competition and overcoming the color barrier. In his famous march in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. longed for a society where "people would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Skin-color and social status should be irrelevant in hiring employees. Judging people by the "content of their character" and their capabilities will create a thriving country.

Works Cited

"A Blow to Affirmative Action in Schools." New York Times. 15 August 1996. A26.
Ayres, Drummond Jr. "California Governor Vows to Cut Affirmative Action." New York Times. 1 June 1995. B10.
Bresler, Robert. "Affirmative Action on the Rocks." USA Today (Magazine). July 1996: P7.
Brown, Shelli. "History of Affirmative Action." Affirmative Action. 23 May 1996. . 15 March 1998.
Greenhouse, Linda. "Administration Backs Off White Teachers's Dismissal." New York Times. 6 June 1997. B4.
Quigly, Dana. "Success?" New York Times. 25 August 1992: C5.
Reibstein, Larry. "What Color Is an A?" Newsweek. 29 Dec. 1997: 76.
Ryan, James. In Defense of Affirmative Action. New York: Harper, 1991. 37.
Shea, Christopher. "Under UCLA's Elaborate System Race Makes a Big Difference." Chronical of Higher Education. 28 April 1995: A12.
Williams, Ronald. "A New Opinion" Washington Post. 7 June 1995: B6.