Affirmative Action in Human Resources Management

Abstract

This research paper will give a brief introduction into the history and definition of the Affirmative Action program and offer some of the debate material for and against Affirmative Action. Additionally, it will explain the depths of Affirmative Action, and how it may affect programs that most people do not really think about. It looks into whom Affirmative Action affects and what extent it plays into the hiring and employment of various races, ethnicities and genders of people. Finally, it will explain the differences in the types of Affirmative Action plans and it will cover some laws currently in place regarding Affirmative Action that Human Resources Managers should be aware of.

Affirmative Action in Human Resources Management

Affirmative Action can be defined numerous ways, specifically depending on the individual's viewpoint of the program. For instance, William Bradford Reynolds, an assistant District Attorney for civil rights during the Reagan presidency, states "affirmative action is a racial spoils system...It's demeaning because it says people are going to get ahead not because of what they can do, but because of their race." On the contrary, Richard F. America, a well-known writer on business and economic issues writes that Affirmative action "is a system to help produce a fairer distribution of income and opportunity, such as the distribution that presumably would exist today had there been an open and fairly competitive society all along." While these are two definitions from opposite sides of the debate spectrum, possibly the best definition I have found is that Affirmative Action is an attempt to correct unequal distribution of benefits (status, income, wealth, power and authority) and burdens associated with ethnic and gender differences. In so many words, the program was instituted to try to correct the negative actions of the country's early inhabitants where people were discriminated against because of race, color, ethnicity or gender.

Affirmative action has been a controversial issue since its "inception" under Executive Order 11246 in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, but its roots reach much deeper than the previous 45 years. Affirmative action most likely originates from the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, which outlaw slavery, guarantee equal protection under the law and forbid racial discrimination when voting, respectively. Other cases that have been involved in the protection of all people include the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy vs. Ferguson that allowed for separation of blacks and whites, but specifically mandated equal treatment for African Americans. The 1954 verdict in the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, which overturned the separate but equal decision of Plessey vs. Ferguson, took further measures to ensure equal protections for all races by saying that separate facilities are inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional. As mentioned earlier, the term "Affirmative Action" was born 11 years later under President Johnson's executive order 11246, which required federal contractors to use affirmative action to make sure people were treated equally, without regard to their race, creed, color or national origin. Two years later, in 1967, President Johnson amended this executive order to include women. Since then, many large corporations, companies and the state and Federal governments have employed Affirmative Action plans in an effort to comply with laws mandating that all employees of corporations, and applicants to universities and other organizations are treated fairly.

In my research, I have found that Affirmative Action reaches outside the standard employment issues and deep into institutions to areas that most people may not think of. For instance, universities are required under Affirmative Action laws to ensure that applicants to the school are treated fairly and given the same opportunities. In their efforts to "prove" this, they often have instances of denying someone admission to the school simply because their quota was based solely on percentages of race or gender. A fairly well known example of this was the 1978 Supreme Court case of Bakke vs. Regents of the University of California. Allen Bakke, a white male, applied to University of California, Davis School of Medicine in 1973 and 1974, and was rejected for admission both years, although there were "special applicants" with significantly lower test scores who were admitted into the program. These special applicants were admitted under provisions either for members of "minority groups" or as "economically and/or educationally disadvantaged." The trial court found UC-Davis' program to be operating strictly under racial quotas and was therefore considered unconstitutional. Additionally, due to the requirements to provide equal opportunities to all races and genders, some schools will cut programs in an effort to save money. An example is University of Texas-El Paso, which was mandated to provide the same number of programs to both male and female athletes. Because of the cost to do this, UTEP had to cut the baseball team from their athletics department simply because they could not afford to offer an alternative sport to women in their school.

Affirmative action affects everybody in the United States. While the program specifically focused on blacks, American Indians and women initially, it has since morphed into a program that covers virtually any range of people who may be considered minorities or "prone to be discriminated against."

Arguments for and against Affirmative action are wide-ranging and many. In an effort to not push my own views of Affirmative action, I will simply pose a couple of arguments that I have found in an effort to allow people to form their own opinions of the program. Some arguments for Affirmative Action are listed here. Some of these arguments talk about Affirmative Action in schools more than in places of employment, but the same basic theories and ideas can be applied to the workplace as well as school.

Diversity is desirable and won't always occur if left to chance.

Part of the education process is learning to interact with other races and nationalities. Many students live very segregated lives up until the time they start college. Thus, opinions of other races and nationalities are based on stereotypes. Interaction allows students to learn that persons of the opposite race are people too, more or less just like themselves. The movie Remember the Titans, based on a true