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Affirmative Action Plan - Sports Medicine and Athletic Training -... sportsmed.missouristate.e... | Personal Trainers throughout United States - CFR - Leading Personal... fitnessandresults.com | | In Focus: Guest Editorial: Affirmative Action sallysatelmd.com | Equal Opportunity, Diversity and Affirmative Action, Rush University rush.edu |
In the United States, affirmative action refers to policies that take gender, race, or ethnicity into account in an attempt to promote equal opportunity and increase ethnic diversity in workplaces and schools. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and public contracting goals, to educational outreach and health programs. The impetus towards affirmative action is twofold: to maximize diversity and its presumed benefits in all levels of society, and to redress perceived disadvantages due to overt, institutional, or involuntary discrimination. In many cases, affirmative action in the United States is meant to encourage public institutions, such as universities, hospitals, and police forces, to be more representative of the populations they serve.
[edit] History of termAffirmative action in the US began as a tool to address the persisting inequalities for African Americans in the 1960s. This specific term was first used to describe US government policy in 1961. Directed to all government contracting agencies, President John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10925 mandated "affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."[1] Four years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson elaborated on the importance of affirmative action to achieving true freedom for African Americans:
After describing the specific historical context of American affirmative action, President Johnson outlined the basic social science view that supports such policies:
As the social science explaining impact of such 'unseen forces' has developed, affirmative action has widened in scope. In 1967, President Johnson amended a previous executive order on equal employment opportunity to expressly mention "discrimination on account of sex" as well.[3] One of the United States' first major applications of affirmative action, the Philadelphia Plan, was enacted by the Nixon administration in 1969. The Revised Philadelphia Plan was controversial for its use of strict quotas and timetables to combat the institutionalized discrimination in the hiring practices of Philadelphia's skilled trade unions. The concept and application of affirmative action has developed since its inception, though its motivation remains the same. [edit] Legal history
[edit] California
[edit] Washington
In the beginning, racial classifications that identified race were inherently suspect and subject to strict scrutiny. These classifications would only be upheld if necessary to promote a compelling governmental interest. Later the U.S. 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. J.A. Croson Co.) There is no clear guidance about when government action is not "compelling", and such rulings are rare. [edit] Michigan
[edit] Nebraska
[edit] ConnecticutRicci v. DeStefano was heard by the United States Supreme Court in 2009. The case concerns white and Hispanic firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, who upon passing their test for promotions to management were denied the promotions, allegedly because of a discriminatory or at least questionable test. The test gave 17 whites and two Hispanics the possibility of immediate promotion. Although 23% of those taking the test were African American, none scored high enough to qualify. Because of the possibility the tests were biased in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act,[12][13] no candidates were promoted pending outcome of the controversy.[14][15] In a split 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that New Haven had engaged in impermissible racial discrimination against the White and Hispanic majority. [edit] Positions against affirmative actionClarence Thomas, the only current black United States Supreme Court Justice, opposes affirmative action because he believes it is detrimental to Black Americans.[16] Onkar Ghate believes that, by judging applicants by race instead of merit, affirmative action is not in the tradition of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.[17][relevant? ] [edit] ControversyAffirmative action has been the subject of numerous court cases, where it is often contested on constitutional grounds. Some individual American states also have orders that prohibit discrimination and outline affirmative action requirements with regard to race, creed, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, gender, age, and disability status. Some other states specifically prohibit affirmative action, with laws intended to decrease discrimination, such as California (Proposition 209), Washington (Initiative 200), Michigan (Michigan Civil Rights Initiative), and Nebraska (Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative (2008)). Some opponents of affirmative action contend that affirmative action programs are discriminatory and that they, in many cases, result in the promotion of under-qualified individuals over higher qualified individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, or gender.[citation needed] They also argue that preferential treatment should be based upon current social and economical standing, not that of one's ancestors. Some opponents say affirmative action devalues the accomplishments of people who are chosen because of the social group to which they belong rather than their qualifications.[18] Opponents of affirmative action include Ward Connerly of the American Civil Rights Institute, who has promoted and won a series of ballot initiatives in the states of California (California Proposition 209 (1996)), Washington (1998 - I-200), and Michigan (the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative - MCRI, or Proposal 2, 2006).[citation needed] California's initiative was co-authored by academics Tom Wood and Glynn Custred in the mid-1990s and was taken up by Connerly after he was appointed in 1994 by Governor Pete Wilson to the University of California Board of Regents.[citation needed] Each of the ballot initiatives have won, and Connerly plans what he calls a "Super-Tuesday" of five additional states in 2008.[citation needed] Professor Carl Cohen of the University of Michigan, who was a supporter of Michigan's Proposal 2, has argued that the term "affirmative action" should be defined differently than "race preference," and that while socioeconomically based or anti-discrimination types of affirmative action are permissible, those that give preference to individuals solely based on their race or gender should not be permitted.[citation needed] Cohen also helped find evidence in 1996 through the Freedom of Information Act that lead to the cases filed by Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter against the University of Michigan for its undergraduate and law admissions policy - cases which were decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 23, 2003.[citation needed] Conservative economist Thomas Sowell identified what he says are negative results of affirmative action in his book, Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study [19]. Sowell writes that affirmative action policies encourage non-preferred groups to designate themselves as members of preferred groups [i.e. primary beneficiaries of affirmative action] to take advantage of group preference policies; that they tend to benefit primarily the most fortunate among the preferred group (e.g., upper and middle class blacks), often to the detriment of the least fortunate among the non-preferred groups (e.g., poor white or Asian); that they reduce the incentives of both the preferred and non-preferred to perform at their best — the former because doing so is unnecessary and the latter because it can prove futile — thereby resulting in net losses for society as a whole; and that they engender animosity toward preferred groups as well.
[edit] Class inequalityThe controversy surrounding affirmative action’s effectiveness is based on the idea of class inequality. Opponents of racial affirmative action argue that the program actually benefits middle- and upper-class people of color at the expense of lower class European Americans and Asian Americans. This argument supports the idea of solely class-based affirmative action. America’s poor is disproportionately made up of people of color, so class-based affirmative action would disproportionately help people of color. This would eliminate the need for race-based affirmative action as well as reducing any disproportionate benefits for middle and upper class people of color.[20]
In 1976, a group of Italian-American professors at City University of New York asked to be added as an affirmative action category for promotion and hiring.[22] A 2005 study by Princeton sociologists Thomas J. Espenshade and Chang Y. Chung compared the effects of affirmative action on racial and special groups at three highly selective private research universities. The data from the study represent admissions disadvantage and advantage in terms of SAT points (on the old 1600-point scale):
[edit] Discrimination?Some opponents of affirmative action, like Ward Connerly, call it discrimination saying affirmative action requires the very discrimination it is seeking to eliminate. According to these opponents, this contradiction makes affirmative action counter-productive. Other opponents say affirmative action causes unprepared applicants to be accepted in highly demanding educational institutions or jobs which result in eventual failure. (See, for example, Richard Sander's study of affirmative action in Law School, bar exam and eventual performance at law firms). Other opponents say that affirmative action lowers the bar, and so denies those who strive for excellence on their own merit and the sense of real achievement. (See, for example, Clarence Thomas' "My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir".) Some argue that affirmative action itself has some merit when it is targeted to true causes of social deprivation such as poverty, but that race-, ethnicity- or gender-based affirmative action is misguided.[24]
Proponents of affirmative action argue that by nature the system is not only race based, but also class and gender based. To eliminate two of its key components would undermine the purpose of the entire system. The African American Policy Forum believes that the class based argument is based on the idea that non-poor minorities do not experience racial and gender based discrimination. The AAPF believes that "Race-conscious affirmative action remains necessary to address race-based obstacles that block the path to success of countless people of color of all classes". The groups goes on to say that affirmative action is responsible for creating the African American middle class, so it does not make sense to say that the system only benefits the middle and upper classes.[25] Some opponents[26] further claim that affirmative action has undesirable side-effects and that it fails to achieve its goals. They argue that it hinders reconciliation, replaces old wrongs with new wrongs, undermines the achievements of minorities, and encourages groups to identify themselves as disadvantaged, even if they are not. It may increase racial tension and benefit the more privileged people within minority groups at the expense of the disenfranchised within majority groups (such as lower-class whites).[27] In the British 2001 Summer of Violence Riots in Oldham, Bradford, Leeds and Burnley, one of the major complaints voiced in poor white areas was alleged discrimination in council funding which favored minority areas. There has recently been a strong push among American states to ban racial or gender preferences in university admissions, in reaction to the controversial and unprecedented decision in Grutter v. Bollinger. In 2006, nearly 60% of Michigan voters decided to ban affirmative action in university admissions. Michigan joined California, Florida, Texas, and Washington in banning the use of race or sex in admissions considerations.[28] Some research has indicated that as many as 15 percent of freshmen enrolled at some of America's most selective colleges are wealthy white teens who failed to meet their institutions' minimum admissions standards, furthermore these wealthy white teens outnumber students who benefit from affirmative action.[29] Some opponents believe, among other things, that affirmative action devalues the accomplishments of people who belong to a group it's supposed to help, therefore making affirmative action counter-productive. On the other hand, a recent study by Deirdre Bowen tested many of the arguments used by the anti-affirmative action camp. Her research showed that minority students experience greater hostility, and internal and external stigma in schools located in states that ban affirmative action—not the schools where students may have benefited from affirmative action admissions.<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1324076> How the media portrays affirmative action and affirmative action cases plays a role in how the public responds to affirmative action. There are claims[who?] that the practice is racist or sexist, or both, depending on how one defines those concepts (for instance, the offering of extra college scholarships to black students and Hispanic students - regardless of race, thus including White Hispanics - as opposed to European American or Asian American students appears overtly racist). Others believe that programs may be motivated by political considerations. Some states[who?] aim to implement ballot measures Fall of 2008 that would eliminate affirmative action. Many of these anti-affirmative action campaigns are spearheaded by the founder of the American Civil Rights Institute, Ward Connerly.[30] [edit] Implementation in universities
In the U.S., a prominent form of affirmative action centers on access to education, particularly admission to universities and other forms of higher education. Race, ethnicity, native language, social class, geographical origin, parental attendance of the university in question (legacy admissions), and/or gender are sometimes taken into account when assessing the meaning of an applicant's grades and test scores. Individuals can also be awarded scholarships and have fees paid on the basis of criteria listed above. In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in Bakke v. Regents that public universities (and other government institutions) could not set specific numerical targets based on race for admissions or employment.[31] The Court said that "goals" and "timetables" for diversity could be set instead.[31] Admissions officers claim to select not based on academic record alone, but also on commitment, enthusiasm, motivation, and potential [32]. Highly selective institutions of higher learning do not simply select only the highest SAT performers to populate their undergraduate courses. Nevertheless, high performers, with 1500 to 1600 points, are extraordinarily well-represented at these institutions.[33] UCLA professor Richard H. Sander published an article in the November 2004 issue of the Stanford Law Review that questioned the effectiveness of affirmative action in law schools. The article presents a study that, among other things, shows that half of all black law students rank near the bottom of their class after the first year of law school, and that black law students are more likely to drop out of law school and to fail the bar exam. The article offers a tentative estimate that the production of new black lawyers in the United States would grow by eight percent if affirmative action programs at all law schools were ended, as less qualified black students would instead attend less prestigious schools where they would be more closely matched with their classmates, and thus perform better. Sander helped to develop a socioeconomically-based affirmative action plan for the UCLA School of Law after the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996 which prohibited the use of racial preferences by public universities California schools. This change occurred after studies that showed that the graduation rate of blacks at UCLA was 41%, compared to 73% for whites. In order to accommodate the ruling in Hopwood v. Texas banning any use of race in school admissions, the State of Texas passed a law guaranteeing entry to any state university of a student's choice if they finished in the top 10% of their graduating class. Florida and California have also replaced racial quotas with class rank and other programs. Class rank tends to benefit top students at less competitive high schools, to the detriment of students at more competitive high schools. This effect, however, may be intentional, as less-funded, less competitive schools are more likely to be schools where minority enrollment is high. Critics argue that class rank is more a measure of one's peers than of one's self. The top-10% rule is also only helpful because schools are still highly racially segregated.[34] And taking the top 10% of each class still does the same thing that traditional affirmative action programs do - admit students to college that would not be admitted under entirely merit-based policies.[34] From 1996 to 1998, Texas had entirely merit-based admission to its state universities, and minority enrollment was low; adopting the "top 10 percent" rule returned minority enrollment to pre-1996 levels.[34] In 2006, Jian Li, a Chinese undergraduate at Yale University, filed a civil rights complaint with the Office for Civil Rights against Princeton University, claiming that his race played a role in their decision to reject his application for admission, and seeking the suspension of federal financial assistance to the university until it "discontinues discrimination against Asian-Americans in all forms" by eliminating race and legacy preferences. Princeton Dean of Admissions Janet Rapelye responded to the claims in the 30 November 2006 issue of the Daily Princetonian by stating that "the numbers don't indicate [discrimination]" and that Li was not admitted because "Many others had far better qualifications." Li's extracurriculars were described as "not all that outstanding" [35]. [edit] See also
[edit] Organizations[edit] References
[edit] External links
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