The Implications of Affirmative Action in a Racially Divided World
The United States is an incredibly divided nation, gridlocked over social, economic, racial, and gender issues. Tensions rise with each day, and as these structural issues accumulate, the nation has become defined by a series of battles — the one percent vs. the ninety-nine percent, Whites vs. Blacks, men vs. women, and even defendants vs. prosecutors. America, a country that once prided itself as a “great melting pot” of bringing diverse communities together, now falls victim to pitting seemingly equal communities against one another.
While the United States abolished slavery 150 years ago and segregation theoretically came to a conclusion 50 years ago, this country is still racially polarized, although now in more discrete ways. It is important to recognize the underlying principles and forms of legislation that contribute to this racial divide and work towards bridging this gap. Affirmative action legislation is a vehicle for helping to reduce racial tensions in this country. These legal cases call attention to the existing racial disparities in the United States and by doing so will hopefully result in a push towards a redistribution of educational resources that will prevent children of minority backgrounds from being at such a significant disadvantage from a young age. This is a pressing issue in today’s society, as demonstrated through the most recent ruling on Harvard College’s usage of this practice in their admissions, but it is also one that must not be dealt with hastily. This article evaluates both historical case law to provide a background context and focuses on a more recent decision in an attempt to illuminate the necessity of implementing affirmative action practices in both the academic and work setting.
Affirmative action is defined as the policy of favoring individuals belonging to groups known to have been discriminated against previously.[1] This practice has its roots in the civil rights movement in which President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, establishing the President's Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity.[2] The order stated that contractors doing business with the government "will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during their employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." Following the birth of affirmative action, case law sought to explain how the concept of affirmative action began to function in society. In 1978, under the University of California Regents v. Bakke, the court decided that a public university may take race into account as a factor in admissions decisions, but that racial quotas are unconstitutional.[3] In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the court found that a law school's limited "affirmative action" use of race in admissions is constitutional.[4] That same day the Supreme Court also ruled on Gratz v. Bollinger, determining that the University of Michigan’s use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause.[5] And just five years ago did Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action hold that a state constitutional amendment that prohibits race-and-sex-based discrimination and preferential treatment in admission decisions does not violate the Equal Protection clause.[6] It becomes pertinent that policies regarding affirmative action can be ruled to have either violated or complied with the fourteenth amendment, depending on whether the policy involves quotas versus simply considering race as a factor, as well as whether the amendment runs the risk of allowing the government or institution to classify people based on race and therefore perpetuate the same racism such policies were meant to alleviate. Thus, it is clear that issue is one of multiple dimensions and must be addressed in such a way that allows for the fair representation and equal treatment of certain racial minorities.
In the most recent case regarding affirmative action, the plaintiff, advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), accused Harvard of considering race too strongly and discriminating against Asian American applicants.[7] This lawsuit is an accessible window through which the issue of affirmative action can be examined. The case highlights the importance of such a policy and its necessity during such a polarizing time. Federal District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs ruled in favor of Harvard, granting the university the right to implement the practice of weighing race while determining admissions.[8] In her ruling, she stated that, “Ensuring diversity at Harvard relies, in part, on race-conscious admissions. Race conscious admissions will always penalize to some extent the groups that are not being advantaged by the process, but this is justified by the compelling interest in diversity and all the benefits that flow from a diverse college population.” In other words, the costs of hurting those who are privileged are outweighed by the benefits of both creating a more diverse student body and providing opportunities to those who are disadvantaged.
Affirmative action is a way to ensure that diversity is obtained and maintained in schools — it helps create tolerant communities by exposing people to a variety of cultures and ideas that are different from their own.[9] In William Bowen and Derek Bok’s book The Shape of the River, the duo found that, after closely investigating decades of data from a group of colleges, students who come from higher economic backgrounds benefit in that they possess more positive racial attitudes towards minorities and participate more civically when they leave college.[10] As such, it is clear that those who are less privileged are not the only ones gaining from such a practice — affirmative action is also making these individuals more sympathetic and accepting of others. This policy also assists disadvantaged individuals who come from areas of the country where there are not very many opportunities, thus granting everyone an equal playing field.[11] Bowen and Bok also found that black students who benefited from affirmative action do better in the long term than their peers who were not exposed to this practice. These students were more likely to graduate college, earn professional degrees, and have higher incomes. The fact that affirmative action contributes to bettering the lives of both those who experience it directly and indirectly is an indication of the success and necessity of this practice.
But it is important to recognize that the benefits of affirmative action are not only seen in the education system, but also in the employment sector. Affirmative action practices can prevent businesses with 15 or more employees from discriminating on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, and physical capability in practices relating to hiring, compensating, promoting, training, and firing employees.[12] They also allow state and federal governments to favor women-owned and minority-owned businesses when awarding contracts, and to reject bids from businesses that do not make good faith efforts to include minority-owned businesses among their subcontractors.[13] Affirmative action protects many people who would otherwise be subject to mistreatment from those in power, thus allowing such individuals to rise in the workforce ladder and ultimately assume the same degree of power of those who otherwise would have discriminated towards these racial groups. That is not to say that specific quotas are what is needed — this would merely divide the American population into racial compartments determined by strict law rather than by individual will. Quotas are an unconstitutional practice, as ruled in University of California Regents v. Bakke, but considering race as one of multiple factors that would allow an individual to be hired, trained, and promoted in a particular job is essential. Recent research analyzes federal contacts from 1973-2003 with a dataset of more than 100,000 large private-sector firms, revealing that affirmative action in the workforce works to help equalize employment rates for both women and minorities with respect to white men.[14] This practice extends beyond the realm of the education sector and seeks to benefit individuals entering the workforce once they have completed their education.
While there are many proponents of nationalizing affirmative action, many individuals take issue with such a practice. The most prominent argument is that affirmative action leads to the acceptance of less-qualified minorities or women who perform less well in school and in jobs. It thus constitutes reverse discrimination against white males and makes an attempt to equalize outcomes rather than opportunity. Nonetheless, white individuals are still overrepresented in higher paying jobs and in elite universities. The ratio of white-to-black workers is about 10-to-1 in management, 8-to-1 in computers and mathematics, 12-to-1 in law, and 7-to-1 in education,[15] and in Boston specifically, white workers outnumber black ones by about 27-to-1 in computer- and mathematics-related professions.[16] It is naive to argue that those who are white are met with disadvantage in the employment and educational fields. Statistics help illustrate the racial gap in higher paying jobs, which is in part a direct result of the obstacles and hindrances that those from minority backgrounds have to overcome in order to be on the same playing field as their white counterparts. These individuals also believe that affirmative action destroys the idea of a meritocracy by putting race as the dominant factor in admissions and hiring.[17] However, race is not the presiding factor in these instances, but rather one of many components that is considered when hiring an employee or admitting a student into a university.
A less publicized argument is that affirmative action does, in fact, hurt whites, but primarily who come from poor socioeconomic statuses. While affirmative action assists those who are of racial minorities, it does not necessarily aid those who are of lower socioeconomic standing. If preferences were intended to remedy disadvantage, they should instead be granted on the basis of disadvantage, not on the basis of race. Supporters of the anti-affirmative action movement hold the idea that if diversity were really the goal, then preferences should instead be given on the basis of unusual characteristics as opposed to race.[18] It is offensive to argue that only minority races can add certain perspectives, and thus this harms individuals who are unique in other ways. Regardless, those who are in favor of implementing affirmative action do not believe that race is the only unique identifier, but rather that it is one of many factors that lends itself to a plethora of distinctive experiences that an individual might have over the course of his or her lifetime. While increasing diversity is one goal of affirmative action, another major reason as to why it is so necessary is that it fosters social mobilization. It is extremely insensitive to the hardships and discrimination that minorities experience on a daily basis to argue that affirmative action should not be incorporated into admissions and hiring practices. Many individuals are offered a job or accepted into a highly esteemed university for reasons other than their race, but race should still be a characteristic that is considered characteristic to account for the barriers that certain individuals have to overcome.
Affirmative action is a policy that is widely contested in the United States. Recent debates surrounding this issue serve to highlight current racial tensions and stress the need to help develop strategies to help alleviate these sensitive sources of conflict. Eight states still hold a ban over affirmative action[19] — indicating that the country has not come to an overall consensus on the necessity for the national inclusion of such a practice. While it does come with many pitfalls, as does any policy, affirmative action has proven, through historical and recent case law, to be a constitutional method for granting preference to specific individuals. It would be impossible for a single policy to act as the perfect solution to a complex and deeply rooted problem, but this strategy works to make strides in the right direction. Hopefully, in the near future, educational resources will be equally distributed across all groups so that such a plan would not be necessary, but until that deep structural change is implemented from the ground up, the nation must rely on methods that provide present benefits to those who have endured significant hardships in the past. Reducing racial divides is a challenging feat, but without policies such as affirmative action, these gaps may never be bridged.
[1] “Affirmative Action.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/affirmative action.
[2] “History of Affirmative Action: American Association for Access Equity and Diversity.” AAAED. https://www.aaaed.org/aaaed/history_of_affirmative_action.asp.
[3] Kramer, Margaret. “A Timeline of Key Supreme Court Cases on Affirmative Action.” The New York Times. The New York Times, March 30, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/affirmative-action-supreme-court.html.
[4] Kramer, “A Timeline of Key Supreme Court Cases on Affirmative Action.”
[5] Kramer, “A Timeline of Key Supreme Court Cases on Affirmative Action.”
[6] Kramer, “A Timeline of Key Supreme Court Cases on Affirmative Action.”
[7] Lombardo, Clare, and Elissa Nadworny. “Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process.” NPR. NPR, October 1, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/10/01/730386096/federal-judge-rules-in-favor-of-harvard-in-admissions-case.
[8] Lombardo & Nadworny, “Federal Judge Upholds Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Process.”
[9] “Pros and Cons.” https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~jesan20l/classweb/arguments.html.
[10] Bowen, William G., and Derek Bok. The Shape of the River. Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions. Princeton University Press, California/Princeton Fulfillment Services, 1445 Lower Ferry Road, Ewing, NJ 08618, 1998.
[11] “Pros and Cons.”
[12] Sowell, Thomas. “Affirmative Action Around the World.” Yale University Press, 2005.
[13] Sowell, “Affirmative Action Around the World.”
[14] Kurtulus, Fidan Ana. "The impact of affirmative action on the employment of minorities and women over three decades: 1973-2003." (2015).
[15] Salsberg, Bob. “AP Analysis: Blacks Largely Left out of High-Paying Jobs.” AP NEWS. Associated Press, April 2, 2018. https://apnews.com/76ba3a042b454d0b8f5341f37490c6cc.
[16] Salsberg, “AP Analysis: Blacks Largely Left out of High-Paying Jobs.”
[17] “Pros and Cons.”
[18] Sacks, David. “The Case Against Affirmative Action.” Stanford Magazine, 1996.
[19] Robinson, Jenna. “Did You Know? Eight States Ban Affirmative Action in College Admissions.” The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, October 23, 2019. https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2019/10/did-you-know-eight-states-ban-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions/.