When Justin
Ketcham, a white college student from the suburbs, thinks about affirmative
action, he thinks about what happened when he sent out letters seeking
scholarships so he could attend Stanford University after being accepted during
his senior year of high school.The organizations that wrote back told him their
money was reserved for women or minorities.
To Americans like Ketcham, it's a matter of fairness. The average white male will claim that it's
not fair to attempt to rebalance scales by balancing them the other way.
Students like Ketcham are also more likely to
claim that affirmative action is a program geared towards curtailing workplace
prejudices that really don't exist anymore.But when Hillary Williams, a black
insurance company manager from the inner-city, thinks about affirmative action,
she thinks about the time she had to train three consecutive white male bosses
for a job that no one even approached her about filling. To her, it's also a question of
fairness. African-Americans like Hillary
feel that there is just no other was besides affirmative action to level the
playing field in certain businesses.And so the disparity in public opinion
begins. A racially-divided America
creates separate groups, which "Affirmative Action issue taps a
fundamental cleavage in American
Society" (Gamson and Modigliani 170)--each with their own view of
affirmative action on different sides of the line. Government attempts to
create policy based upon the voice of the people but affirmative action seems
to present an almost un-solvable dilemma.
Traditionally, it had been a policy that was greatly scrutinized for its
quotas and alleged unfairness towards Blacks, but at the same time it had also
been praised for its inherent ability to help minorities gets jobs they deserve but could not obtain
otherwise. So how do we reach a
"happy medium" so-to-speak? In
American political culture, it appears as though individualism and
egalitarianism are values that find themselves on opposite ends of the
political battlefield.
In a complex
world of political ideology and political culture are sets of values and
principles that are widely endorsed by politicians, educators, the media and
other opinion leaders that make up the definition of what is to be American
(Feldman and Zaller). Some favor the values of individual freedom, especially
individual economic freedom, over other values, especially equality and popular
sovereignty (egalitarianism). These people are labeled Conservatives. The other
side of the spectrum consider themselves as Liberals (Feldman and
Zaller).Because we live in a meritocracy created by the strong forces of
capitalism, there is a tendency for people to fall behind either in the economy
or in the academic community. During the Civil Rights movement of 1960's,
affirmative action was implemented with the idea and hope that America would
finally become truly equal. The tension of the 1960s civil rights movement had
made it very clear that the nations minority and female population was not
receiving equal social and economic opportunity. The implementation of
affirmative action was America's first honest attempt at solving a problem it
had previously chose to ignore.The Philadelphia Plan was one of the first major
vehicles for affirmative action named for the first city in which a labor
department agreement with federal contractors had been reached. "The plan set specific numerical goals
for each of the minority employment and the availability pool." Labor Department officials announced that
"because of the deplorably low rate of employment among minority
groups" in the industry, they would set up similar plans in other major
cities (Gamson and Modigliani 139).
Today, without a
college degree will definitely decrease the chance of upward mobility. Public universities give preferences to
minorities based on race and gender.
Many private universities, including Harvard, Chicago and Stanford, have
given preferences to the children of alumni, faculty, and athletes. This is not to say that public universities
give the same preferential treatment, but it goes to show that public
institutions use affirmative action to uplift the non-privileged minority
(Leslie 1991, 59). And universities
gives special scholarships and fellowships to a limited amount of applicants
from a particular, regional, gender, ethnic, or religious backgrounds (Lipset
39).Conservatives believe that people could achieve social mobility by "hard work (and ambition) rather than
lucky breaks or help from other people" (Lipset 30). From 1983 through 1990, surveys taken by NORC
found that around two-thirds of respondents consistently agreed that
"people get ahead by hard work (and) a much larger percentage said
ambition" (Lipset 30). In October 1989, poll taken by ABC News-Washington
Post, found that 60 percent of whites and 60 percent of blacks agreed with the
statements: "if blacks would try
harder, they could be just as well off as whites." Conservatives (whites)
are overwhelmingly non-supportive to affirmative action or preferential
treatment, as seen from responses to the following NES questions in 1988 and
1992 (Sniderman and Piazza 1993, 104):
Some people say
that because of past discrimination it is sometimes necessary for colleges and
universities to reserve openings for black student. Other oppose quotas because they say quotas
give blacks advantages they haven't earned.
What about your opinion-are you for or against quotas to admit black
students?
For Against Unsure
1988: 33% 58% 9%
1992: 23% 71% 6%
Some people say
that because of past discrimination, blacks should be given preference in
hiring and promotion. Others say that
such preference in hiring and promotion is wrong because it discriminates
against whites. What about your
opinion-are you for or against preferential hiring for blacks?
For
Against Unsure
1988: 19% 75% 6%
1992: 13% 84% 3%
The attitudes on
affirmative action are firmly held for the white majority. Sniderman and Piazza says that the opposition
of egalitarian polices like affirmative action lead to a negative stereotyping
of minorities. Among the randomly
selected sample, one-half of them were asked about black stereotypes-they are
irresponsible, they are lazy, they are arrogant. These questions were the immediately followed
by a single question about affirmative action in employment. The other half of the sample was asked the
same question about blacks, but they were immediately preceded by the question
about affirmative action in employment.
The data show significantly higher percentages of negative stereotypes
about blacks for the sample getting the affirmative action questions (Sniderman
and Piazza 1993, 97-104). Sniderman and
Piazza (1993, 109) concluded that "affirmative action is so intensely
disliked that it has led some whites to dislike blacks-an ironic example of a
policy meant to put the divided of race behind us in fact further widening
it."
Study completed
by Stanley Dickinson, argued that
students somewhat feel the same way that Sniderman and Piazza stated
above. He asked 759 anonymous 'non-minority students'
about their thoughts of stereotyping among certain racial groups. 8 out of 10
or 80% of the students said at one particular time they had used 'negative
stereotyping' as a result from affirmative action. It goes to show that
affirmative action or preferential treatment constitutes a negative opinion
(emphasis from Sniderman and Piazza)."
The same survey found 52 percent of blacks and 56 percent of whites
accepting the view that "discrimination has unfairly held down blacks, but
many of the problems blacks in this country have (back then) brought on by
blacks themselves" (Lipset 50). According to Sears and Kinder 1971, he
argues that "symbolic racism" explains the lack of support among
whites for particular remedies to solve the problem of racial
discrimination. Whites are more likely
to respond to symbolic racism (i.e. Black, Mexican, etc.) rather than policy
content of the question. Over the past
few decades, straight out racism is quite unacceptable. "Now racial hostility is expressed
indirectly by a glorification of traditional values such as 'work ethic' and
'individualism,' in which blacks and other minorities groups are seen as
deficient" (Sears 1986). Sniderman
and Piazza argue the rival explanation of straightforward politics. They argue that "the central problem of
racial politics is not the problem of prejudice" (1993, 107). The agenda of the civil rights movement has
changed from one of equal opportunity to equal outcomes. The vast majority of the American Creed view
the new civil rights program of racial quotas and affirmative action very much
contrast with the principle of equal opportunity for all (Erikson/Tedin 95).
Although the
civil rights movement fabricated most of the political culture, progress for
socio-economic equality has been inadequate, uneven and unsteady. This fact in itself urges the public to argue
for changed policies. Today, people are
listing to the 'individualistic' side rather than tipsy egalitarian side of the
political spectrum. Proposition 209 was an civil rightsinitiative that
utilized conservative values of
individualistic principles to get rid of 1There are only 7 counties that did
not support the initiative. Women, especially white women, have by many
measures made greater gains than
minorities (Lester PG), a sore point that could complicate
coalition-building now that affirmative action is under fire. Whatever its role in spawning a healthy black
middle class, it has barely touched black poverty or reduced an enduring gap
between white and black unemployment rates.Given this pattern, it is hardly
surprising that the much touted review of federal programs commissioned by the
President, should have included a considerable amount of straightforward advocacy
for the diversity principle. For example, that the "competitiveness of our
society and economy" depends upon building an "inclusive"
economy, and adds that in science, education, and other fields, there will be
"dangerous shortages of talent if we continue to draw the ranks of those
professions so overwhelmingly from among white males only" (Aptheker
15). The suggestion that women and
minorities offer abilities different from and in some ways superior to those of
white men is echoed elsewhere in the assertion that diversity "is critical
to the quality of certain institutions and professions." Throughout, society's equilibrium is measured
by the standard of proportional representation, and any deviation from the norm
is regarded as a major social wrong.But affirmative action is, after all , a
policy which has survived at least in theme for years in the face of
widespread, and often angry, disapproval.
It is also a policy whose potential constituency is quite formidable,
encompassing blacks, certain immigrants groups, and women-in other words, over
half the population. True, many women,
Hispanics, and Asians are ambivalent about or in some cases hostile to the idea
of group rights, but Americans retain a powerful attachment to the principle of
affirmative action, and many in the new black middle class have come back to
look on it as an entitlement-much as the elderly view Medicare or farmers
regard crop subsidies. Support for
affirmative action also enjoys the status of a litmus test of group loyalty for
black elected officials and civil-rights leaders.
Affirmative
action is a cheap and easy way to remedy societal fall backs Over the last few
decades, public opinion about affirmative actions has changed tantamount to
public policy. The original affirmative-action
initiative emerged out of a belief that the racial neutrality enshrined in the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not suffice to change the face of American
society. According to this reasoning,
even if individual blacks were no longer being denied opportunities, black as a
whole would nevertheless, simply because the country's economic and educational
institutions functioned in a systemically discriminatory way. It was in the basis of this theory-known popularly
as the doctrine of institutional racism-that the earliest affirmative action
plans called for lowering employment standards en masse, and for coercing
corporations and government agencies into agreements which, in practice, often
led to defacto quotas (emphasis aptheker 16). According to S.M. Lipset,
Americans believe strongly in both values: individualism and egalitarianism.
But affirmative action has, since its inception, been an ever-present example
of government attempting to create a public policy that would appeal all. Some commentators content that the move to
affirmative action came because the nation, faced with the financial demands of
the Vietnam War buildup, was unable to afford the vast sums necessary on social
programs to help the poor compete their way to economic parity (Aptheker
14). In this view, affirmative action
was perceived as the fast, cheap way to achieve social equality.Whatever its
origins, few doubt that affirmative action has helped ope the doors of
oportunity for minorities and women over the past three decades. Their numbers have grown throughout the
workforce, including high paying professions like law and medicine. Both the gender gap and, to a slightly lesser
degree, the racial gap in median earnings have narrowed. In this sense, a greater number of minorites
have moved into positions of power, and thus their groups have a much stronger
influence upon affirmative action itself . . .or so one might think . .BUT IN
THE OTHER HAND, THE
And economists
agree that progress has not meant parity.
Women, according to one recent study, still earn on average 15 percent
less than comarably qualified men.
Blacks actually made their greatest gains between 1940 and 1970 and fell
back relative to whates during the 1980's (Currie 19). Both groups remain underrepresented in
high-paying executive and magerial positions.
And studies pairing black and white job applicants with similar
credentials consistently show that whites do better (Williams 75-6).On the
public platform, affirmative action is indeed an emotional, divisive and
complicated issue for policy-makers. 30
years after it entered the national lexicon on the wake of the passage of the
Civil Right Act of 1964, it has emerged as one of the nation's major topic of
disagreement and debate. From government
set-aside to workplace preferences to race-targeted school admissions, it is
under attack from opponents who want to abolish of and from reformers who want
to refocus it.Although these policies were unpopular with white Americans from
the outset, they were grudgingly accepted by many on the grounds that blacks,
who has recently been the objects of legal discrimination, arguably deserved
some limited amount of compensatory justice.
Over the years, however, the proposition that affirmative action was
necessary to combat discrimination, or even the effects of past discrimination,
became increasingly difficult to sustain.
Employers met the conditions set down by enforcement agencies;
employment and educational tests were changed, and personnel policies were
adjusted to conform with guidelines established by the EEOC; and thousands of
new businesses set their hiring policies entirely according to affirmative
action principles.Faced with an increasingly shaky rationale, the advocates of
preferences began to advance a new one:
diversity. Like the original
conception, diversity assumed an America in which racism (now joined by sexism)
was rampant. But diversity was designed
less to fight bias in particular instances than to create sweeping standards
for the entire workforce, if not for the entire society. And where affirmative action had been
intended, at least theoretically, to enhanced the goal of societal integration,
diversity celebrated difference and promote "multiculturalism"-i.e.,
segregation. Implementing it necessitated
a degree of racial and sexual consciousness virtually limitless in its
application.There are few figures in public life today as committed to the
diversity idea as President Clinton.
From the musical and literary selections at his inaugural ceremony, to
his policy of setting aside one of every three positions on the new
adminstration for women and minorities, to his having reserved to position of
Attorney General for a woman, to the scrupulous balancing of his health-care
task force according to race and gender, to the proposal advanced by that task
force to impose a diversity system on the medical profession, the Clinton
administration has sent an unmistakable message: as for as the government is
concerned, America is a country that counts by race and gender.The
adminstration's attitude was perhaps most vividly demonstrated ina case involving a public-school teacher in
Piscataway, New Jersey. In 1989, the
local schoool board had been confronted with the need to lay off one of two
home economics teachers-one white, one black, with equal seniority and
comparable performance assessments. Even
though blacks were well-represented throughout the faculty, the board dismissed
the white teacher on purely racial grounds.
She then sued, and the Bush adminstration, citing flagrant reverse
discrimination, supported her action (Citrin 40-1). The
Clinton adminstration, however, abruptly reversed course and supported the
schoool board. It had to do so on
grounds other than discrimination against the black teacher, which was never an
issue in this case; the grounds it came up with were "diversity."Nor
does affirmative action lack for broad backing among predominactly white
institutions. The business community has
regularly spoken against anti-quota legislations in the past, and is distinctly
unenthusiastic about anti-preference proposals today, including CCRI (Czurak
1). Officials at prestigous unversiies
regard their racially balanced student boddies as a major achievement. Even the American
No comments:
Post a Comment