by Keith Laing, Atlanta Tribune: The Magazine
September 2007
At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the U.S. federal government first enacted affirmative action programs to level the playing field for blacks in the classroom and in the boardroom. Several decades later, as the first generation of black millionaires nears retirement and the first generation of black and majority white university alumni send their kids to school, the case could certainly be made that the field is now level.
And several times, that case has in fact been made. Courts across the country have ruled several times on race-based school admissions, culminating most notably in two 2003 Supreme Court decisions that barred its use in undergraduate and law schools, and then again in a June 2007 decision striking down school choice public school plans. The Court left minimal wiggle room for using race combined with other factors.. For affirmative action, the decisions were not the decisive blows they could have been, but they were certainly no Brown vs the Board of Education.
However, the jury is still out on whether or not those decisions will close the case on affirmative action in corporate America. Some, like Robert Ethridge, former president for Americans for Affirmative Action , think corporate affirmative action will not be affected.
“The Supreme Court has been making decisions that are really the same,” says Ethridge, who also serves as Emory University’s vice-president of equal opportunity programs. “I don’t think the situation has gotten any worse legally. They said you can’t use race as the primary factor, but on the other hand, you can use race. There’s enough double talk there for each side to claim they won.”
Still, Ethridge admits the potential for a ripple effect is real.
“I think [the education decisions] could have an impact,” he says. “I like to say they are separate programs, but it’s important to develop programs that are legally defensible.”
Deborah Burris, current vice-president of the American Association for Affirmative Action and the Director of Equal Opportunity for the University of Missouri-St. Louis, agrees that corporate affirmative action can withstand the legal onslaught.
“The decisions made involving schools stated that they wouldn’t affect other affirmative action programs from what I remember,” Burris says. “The courts separated the two in the language [of their decisions].”
Furthermore, Burris adds, hiring minorities makes business sense for most companies.
“In a global marketplace, you can’t afford not to have men and women of diverse backgrounds bringing diverse talents,” she says. “That enhances the service you are providing and allows you to reach more clients.”
That’s why corporations have not shied away from their affirmative actions programs, even as schools are being forced to reduce or remove theirs, Burris says. Some even went as far as opposing the rulings on school admissions, she adds.
“There were a number of corporations when the deal happened with the University of Michigan [in 2003] that came out in support of affirmative action because they understood if schools don’t have programs in place to encourage the development of all segments of the population, it will affect their workforce,” Burris says. “When recruiters go to college campuses, they are looking for people to hire. [Affirmative action] affects their bottom line and obviously, businesses are sensitive to that.”
Even in education hiring, despite being in the field that is home to most of the highest profile decisions regarding affirmative action, such sensitivity exists. Gwinnett County Schools spokeswoman Sloan Roach says that court cases about students notwithstanding, the county aggressively recruits minorities to teach.
“From an employee standpoint, we try to hire a diverse workforce that mirrors our community,” she says. “It just makes sense. [With a diverse workforce] students can have someone in the classroom they can look up to.”
Roach admits the county is not where it needs to be yet. Last school year, 61 percent of the system’s 151,185 students were minorities, but only 20 percent of its 19,388 of its full-time employees listed a race other than white.
“We face challenges in that the demand for new employees is not met by the supply in colleges and universities that have teaching schools, especially [students] of color.
The county’s rapidly changing population has not helped either, Roach adds.
“Gwinnett has grown so diverse that we can’t keep up,” she says.
Still, Roach says, that does not keep Gwinnett schools from trying.
“We recruit at HBCUs, all the major career and jobfairs,” she says. “We place advertisements in [ethnic] publications . We are an equal opportunity employer, so we pursue applicants all over and we pursue minorities just as aggressively as non-minorities.”
Political Minefield
Commitments from individual employers like Gwinnett County schools notwithstanding, the courts seem to be speaking and lawmakers seem to be listening. Burris admits that affirmative action has become a political minefield, used alternatively to lob bombs at opponents and avoided by electorate-fearing incumbents.
“Affirmative action has become so politically charged unfortunately that some of the politicians in our world use it as a political football for their own gain, coming out in favor or against it if they think they can get more votes.”
State Rep. Bob Holmes, who chairs the Atlanta-Fulton County delegation of the Georgia General Assembly, agrees that the climate for affirmative action is not what it was in the Civil Rights heyday. Holmes says that affirmative action has probably peaked.
“It’s probably reached the high water mark support wise,” says Holmes, a political scientist by trade. “The reaction has been more strident and the conservative notion is that we’ve been doing this for several decades and it’s never going to end. That growing sentiment in the white community is causing the backlash.”
And those flames have been fanned by the recent court decisions, Holmes says.
“The Courts have driven the current climate,” he says. “They have been hostile to affirmative action in education and minority business entrepreneurial programs.”
For the most part, the decisions that have been made make it impossible to craft a program that would get the approval of the Court. Programs have been changed because even though institutions want to do the right, the Court is making that impossible. So they begin to pull back because they are running into a brick wall.”
That’s why Holmes’ prognostication for affirmative action is bleak.
“It’s kind of like its dead, but it hasn’t been buried,” he says. As evidence, he points to the ongoing president campaign. Neither Democrats nor Republicans are talking about affirmative action, he says.
“It has no visibility,” Holmes says. “It’s not high on the public agenda, so the future is dim.”
The Next Step
In a climate where the mere mention of utilizing race in hiring practice can land a company on the steps of the Supreme Court, many have chosen instead to focus on diversity programs, Burris says. Diversity programs are designed to make sure employees are tolerant of each other, no matter their race or ethnicity.
“There’s definitely a focus on diversity because it’s much more politically correct,” Burris says. “It’s more palatable to say ‘diversity’ because it is not as emotionally charged. You see people opening diversity offices. That’s the thing to do now if you want to be seen in a positive light.”
Emory University equal opportunity officer Ethridge agrees that diversity is the new “it” phrase in human resources.
“Diversity has become the buzz word,” he says. “Affirmative action carries baggage because all the programs around the country have not been handled correctly. But that doesn’t mean you get rid of every program.”
Ethridge says diversity programs have become so popular that they could present a risk to affirmative action.
“With the push toward diversity, you could see affirmative action losing some stature and ending up way down the administrative line,” he says. “My concern about diversity [as a replacement for affirmative action] is that it does not have a legal basis. Everyone does not have a commitment to helping others instead of doing what’s expedient. It’s documented that we gravitate to people that look like us. As long as that is happening, we have to have affirmative action.”
Still, Ethridge admits that diversity programs play a big role in improving the corporate world for minorities.
“One of the things you must do before you get out and recruit [minorities] is assess the climate you are bringing folks into,” he says. “Diversity is very helpful there.”
Burris agrees that although diversity programs may have more luster than battle scarred affirmative action programs, they do strive for complimentary goals.
“You can’t have one without the other,” she says. “You need to have things going to ensure the environment is welcoming to minorities. You need to make sure that once an individual becomes a part of your organization that they can succeed and thereby the organization can succeed.”
“To me, diversity programs represent the proactive piece of affirmative action because they are based on the philosophy of an organization,” she continues. “Diversity is a choice.”
Diversity programs have some advantages that affirmative action does not, Burris adds.
“Diversity programs go beyond affirmative action,” she says. “They are able to encompass differences in economic background, geographic regions and religions. Affirmative action speaks to certain protected groups.”
A Long Way to Go
Just as big a challenge to affirmative action as the trend toward diversity is the graying of the generation that vividly remembers de jure racism in the work place, Rep. Holmes says.
“Many of the younger generation came in after [the Civil Rights Movement], so they don’t recognize the disparity,” he says. “Affirmative action may simply disappear if we don’t continue to highlight the need for it.”
Holmes argues that the need is as strong as ever. “We need to look below the surface,” he says. “Black people are still unemployed twice as much as whites and black income is still 60 percent of whites. We have a situation where the top blacks are not in operations. They are director of consumer affairs [or something along those lines], but we have very few blacks who are controllers. We have more blacks coming in [to the workforce], but at the lower levels. It could be airlines, banks or whatever, but there’s still a glass ceiling.”
“Yes, we’ve made progress,” he continues, “but we still have a long ways to go. That’s the status of affirmative action in Atlanta and in the nation really.”
Americans for Affirmative Actions vice-president Burris adds that going forward, affirmative action needs to be concerned with more than just numbers.
“We see more women and minorities being hired and advancing to management, but we have to start looking deeper,” she says. “There are still areas and opportunities minorities don’t have access to. We have laws like [the] Equal Pay [Act], but if you look at benefits packages at some of these Fortune 500 companies, are women and minorities getting the same perks if you would [like] access to the company car, stock options and invites to the country? You have to look at things that may not be as tangible or black and white, but speak to an individual’s opportunity for advancement and growth.”
“Those things are not always known,” Burris continues. “Say for instance you have a first time college graduate going into a field that they may not have many family or friends in. They may not know [about the perks of working for their company] because many times, friends and relatives make you aware.”
That’s why Burris says it is time to change the perception of affirmative action.
“There’s a lack of understanding,” she says. “Most people see affirmative action as black and white. There needs to be more education as to society at large about what affirmative action really is. It’s not quotas. It’s not that if an organization promotes certain people that others are not going to get promoted. Many people believe that if a minority is considered for a job than a non-minority is not going to be. Affirmative action goes beyond race to ensure that the process is open and fair to everyone.”
Despite the challenges, legal and otherwise, affirmative action is still worthwhile and probably always will be, Burris adds.
“When it’s all said and done, organizations that are federal contractors will still have to abide by the law,” she says. “In 10 years, we might not be using the words affirmative action, but those functions will never go away, because we will continue to see increases in groups that have been underrepresented in the past.”
