Expert: Michael Troy - 6/18/2004

Question
Is Affirmative Action a voluntary program and does it involve quotas?

Answer
Hi Michael,

The term "affirmative action" is rather meaninless out of context.  It basically means taking "postitive steps."  In the 1960's it was applied to ending racial discrimination by getting employers and others to take certain steps to include more minorities.

The problem at that time was that actual conscious and explicit discrimination had been made illegal.  People stopped that, but might still have policies in place that might unintentionally disadvantage minorities.  The idea was that they should look at ways other than just stopping any active discrimination to bring more minorities into the system.

For example, say there are five colleges in the area.  The employer has a policy of sending employees who are alumni of a particular college back there to recruit new employees.  The problem is that most of the employees are graduates of only four of the colleges and that the fifth one is mostly black students.  In that case, the employer would not be discriminating against blacks, but his policies make it less likely that black students will become aware of job openings with this employer.

It would be a form of "affirmative action" to notice this and to make an effort loosen up the alumni rule to send recruiters to the black college as well.  Virtually no one objects to this form of affirmative action.

The more controversial forms of affirmative action involve differential treatment of minorities in the recruitment process.  The most controversial of these is the quota.  A quota means that no matter how unqualified an applicant is, an employer or school must take a certain percentage of them.  If a fire department is hiring 10 new people, 5 of them must be black, no matter how unqualified the people are who apply.  Although courts used to occasionally require racial quotas, more recently, they have found that in almost all circumstances they are illegal.

The more recent debate has been over racial preferences.  Sometimes these have the same practical effect as quotas, and certainly they give benefit to one group over another based on race.  For example, some universities have one set of standards based on grades and test scores for white applicants and another lower set of qualifications for black applicants.  Others, might give extra points to minorities just because they are minorities to bring up their average scores and ensure that a larger number of them will get in.  Other examples involve changing admission or job requirements to benefit minorities.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that it was ok, at least for the next few years, for universities to give these sorts of benefits to underrpresented minorities.  At the same time, it has held that employers' use of such plans is illegal discrimination, except under limited circumstances.

Some of these plans are voluntary, some are required by law or court order, and some are encouraged by the government.  A government might only give contracts or other benefits to companies with certain numbers of minorities or with minority owners.  The government may also engage in costly and time-consuming investigations of companies that it believes does not hire a high enough percentage of minorities.  For these reasons many companies "voluntarily" create racial preferences in order to receive government benefits or avoid government hassles.  

This is a pretty broad question.  I cannot give as detailed a response as I might like without making my answer way too long.  If you have any more specific questions on the issue, I'm happy to provide more information.

- Mike