Affirmative Action
Barkan, Joanne
No issue is more likely to set the tone ofpolitics before the 1996 elections than affirmative action. In California affirmative action has already become a driving issue, as Democrats, Republicans,...
...Supporters often present the policy as a way to stretch the complex definition of economic disadvantage until it produces the same mix as racial preferences— but no one has to deal openly with race...
...I would suggest two modest steps to start...
...Break open white strongholds (fire departments, for example) by requiring them to implement plans to include blacks...
...They make a strong point...
...Not a problem, CBAAers respond...
...grant special help to members of aggrieved groups, no...
...The Republican party, they argue, has used affirmative action so effectively as a "wedge issue" that progressives have no chance of rebuilding a majority as long as the policy continues...
...For some left-of-center pundits, the liabilities weigh too much...
...and it carries the moral burden of reverse discrimination...
...Dissent has told the story innumerable times of the U.S...
...But this assurance means nothing if CBAA recruits are minorities...
...DissENr asked a variety of writers to address the moral and political issues raised by affirmative action...
...Some CBAA advocates insist racism produces the stigma, whereas mere class divisions will not...
...To overcome dogged southern opposition, the act's Title VII rejected the notion of preferential treatment...
...Americans should know (would t'were so) the basic history of the struggle: the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin...
...Meanwhile, left CBAAers will argue against race- and genderbased policies...
...What price does it exact...
...Yes, affirmative action has generated some, but not all, white resentment...
...Assertions that racial preferences actually undermined progress, that the black middle class would have grown faster if affirmative action had not diverted attention from deeper reforms are counterintuitive...
...Looking at racial preferences (the almost exclusive focus of current debate), we see that minorities entered lilywhite enclaves in the building trades, police departments, fire departments, other government services, and news bureaus...
...Third, the not-goodenoughto-make-it-on-your-own stigma could stick to CBAA beneficiaries just as easily as to race-based ones...
...In fact, he chatted on, they had wanted to award me a National Defense Education Act fellowship (of which they had just one or two), but since I was a woman, they feared I might "go off and get married" without finishing my degree, and so they had given the fellowship to a nun...
...The black middle class grew substantially...
...Well-off entrepreneurs can find ways to pass as economically disadvantaged...
...some never had a fighting chance...
...Opponents of race-based preferences stand on more solid ground when they reiterate the liabilities predicted in the 1960s...
...First, CBAA does nothing about the moral quandary or the problem of resentment...
...With executive orders in 1965 and 1967, Johnson took steps to use the federal government's economic power (in hiring, awarding contracts, and making grants) to demand affirmative action plans...
...The warning applies here...
...Based on measurable criteria—income plus assets, geographical concentration of poverty, and so on—schools and employers would give preference to the ED of all races...
...Whites have resented and resisted every effort blacks have made to achieve equality...
...Put a "thumb on the scale" to help them into training programs, schools, and entry-level jobs...
...The small-town doctor's daughter who has the better record but loses a place at Stanford to the daughter of a small-town waitress still suffers reverse 462 • DISSENT Affirmative Action, discrimination and may resent it...
...Skeptics point out that black students might not get into high-ranking colleges under CBAA because low-income whites consistently test higher than low-income blacks...
...In this respect, affirmative action is not a special case...
...When a fair evaluation shows a program to be ineffective, fraud-ridden, wasteful, or unjust, the left should endorse revamping or dropping it...
...it has stigmatized beneficiaries in the eyes of some whites and some blacks...
...Strict enforcement of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1991 will deal with active discrimination...
...Publicizing success stories is the second step...
...Given the widespread unpopularity of racial preferences, class-based affirmative action (CBAA) of the left variety has an appeal...
...The economy no longer generated the raw materials of big reform—strong growth, enough jobs with decent pay, and middle-class security that makes redistribution politically possible...
...Elite institutions such as universities, law firms, corporate offices, and hospital administrations increased recruitment...
...More than half the population—women (including nuns) and "minority men"—rarely had equal opportunity...
...And the others...
...Although most Americans have no idea how such a program works, he said no more about it...
...No one denied the existence of racism separate from economic issues, but rigorous enforcement of antidiscrimination laws and radical economic reforms seemed to add up to the most equality of opportunity...
...CBAA doesn't assume we live in a color-blind society so much as pretend to assume it...
...Second, CBAA helps too few people...
...They propose substituting race with class (that is, economic disadvantage or ED...
...The press described the University of California at Berkeley's high quality recruitment program in detail only after it came under Republican assault...
...Someone from Tufts University—a male dean or department chair, I can't remember—called to say the faculty had accepted my application...
...Small steps like these might persuade some citizens that the benefits of affirmative action still outweigh the liabilities...
...As Lyndon Johnson signed the legislation, he and civil rights leaders knew that dropping barriers would help only individuals who had enough education, skills, and experience to compete— for example, members of the tiny black middle class...
...Create equal opportunity by eliminating barriers to individual freedom, yes...
...Women entered the picture later...
...Martin Luther King, Jr., and others understood the various pitfalls of racial preferences—social (they'd create white resentment and aggravate racial tensions), political (they'd undermine potential progressive coalitions), psychological (they'd stigmatize beneficiaries), and moral (they'd result in reverse racial discrimination...
...along with other factors, it divides natural allies of a class-based progressive coalition...
...These leaders advocated instead reshaping the economy to create substantive equality of opportunity for all Americans...
...Affirmative action begs for democratic management—for careful design and monitoring by the people who live with it...
...Many conservatives claim affirmative action caused the economic problems (and most other domestic woes), but the opposite is true...
...Race-based preferences were not the reformofchoice for civil rights leaders...
...Yet they might also harbor unrealistic expectations about the end of the old affirmative action...
...To repair the tragic legacy of racial subjugation, the reasoning goes, refocus efforts on the structural reforms that create true equality of opportunity...
...The two positions can converge around a radical economic program—but that's for the unforeseeable future...
...We got none of the reforms...
...On television last spring, the editor of the Trenton limes mentioned that he rims an effective affirmative action program to the good of his newspaper...
...According to proponents, class-based preferences would help blacks and Latinos because they have disproportionately high representation among the ED...
...Without the radical economic reforms, CBAA leaves most problems unsolved...
...When the ink was dry, Johnson began redefining affirmative action to mean preferential treatment for members of disadvantaged groups...
...First, drop the defensiveness about scrutinizing individual programs...
...it helps too few...
...Considering the overall ascendancy of the right and the power of a financial elite hooked on deflationary policies, will it make a huge difference...
...Economic restructuring in favor of capital's globetrotting elite made Dr...
...From a left point of view, the most credible version of this class argument also puts a radical economic program at the center of its coalitionbuilding politics...
...Fourth, CBAA looks just as vulnerable to a type of fraud that sometimes marred racial and gender setasides in contracting...
...During twenty-five years of economic retrenchment for wage earners, where would progress have come from...
...Even a poor tool can produce some good, and so did affirmative action...
...economy's structural decline after 1970, the stagnation of real wages, and the expansion of poverty...
...Still, leftists who support race and gender policies need to confront the political and moral liabilities...
...This logic exposes a troubling aspect of CBAA...
...Honest inquiries will strengthen the case for affirmative action because they will undoubtedly reveal many successful programs...
...Debating affirmative action in the United States today, it helps to keep in mind how we once lived in this greatest of all meritocracies...
...Couldn't Dissent publish an ongoing series of thumbnail sketches from around the country, getting the information out before a crisis begins...
...Can it be improved upon or is an alternative needed...
...But when sufficient social pressure forced the federal government to consider leveling the playing field, the struggle over how to do that began...
...THE EDITORS It was 1968, and I had applied to graduate schools in the field of French literature...
...All the while, of course, a misdirected economy has aggravated the negative effects of affirmative action...
...Just defme economic disadvantage to include factors that will draw in blacks—for example, concentration of poverty in the high-school district...
...Its supporters claim that the right would like nothing more than to have the left dissipate itself defending race-based affirmative action...
...What would happen without it...
...contracts would go to businesses owned by the ED or, better, to businesses hiring the ED...
...King's vision impossible...
...Who benefits from affirmative action...
...Like the rest of the democratic left, they wanted FALL • 1995 • 461 Affirmative Action full employment, skills training, good public schools, national health care, affordable child care, and drug prevention for everyone...
...Never underestimate the power of racism in the United States," Michael Harrington used to say to his comrades...
...We were left with a small flawed tool to equalize opportunity: affirmative action in the form of group preferences in contracting, employment, and education...
...In California affirmative action has already become a driving issue, as Democrats, Republicans, and independents argue about the California Civil Rights Initiative—a referendum that would prohibit the state and any of its subdivisions from using affirmative action in jobs, school admissions, or setasides...
...To that story, we can add this observation: the period of economic deterioration coincides with the era of affirmative action...
Vol. 42 • September 1995 • No. 4
