Affirmative Action; E. Pasour

Like the Hutterites, Sikhs live in very large groups. According to Gurnam Singh Sanghera of the East Indian Workers Association of Can ada, many ethnic communities live with three or four generations under one roof-and with an extended family in each generation of aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on. Were the private sector discriminating against the Sikhs or Hutterites, these groups could find accommodations, albeit perhaps at 29 slightly higher prices. But when they are vic timized in the public sector, their plight is far more serious. They must convince a majority of the electorate-many of whom are hostile to them-of the injustice in discriminatory laws. History tells us this is no easy task. Given that public-sector discrimination is far more harmful to minorities than private dis crimination, those who sympathize with racial and ethnic victims should think twice before entrusting human rights to the state. The market is a far better alternative. 0 AffirDlative Action: A Counterproductive Policy by Ernest Pasour " That teacher was selected for affirma tive action reasons." That is how I first heard the term used-implying a lack of ability on the part of a teacher at my high school.

The phrase "affirmative action" was first used in a racial discrimination context in Exec utive Order No. 10,925 issued by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. This executive order indicated that Federal contractors should take affirmative action to ensure that job applicants and employees are treated "without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin." The civil rights legislation of the 1960s followed in the same vein. As initially presented, affirmative action re ferred to various activities to ensure the fairness of hiring and promotion decisions and to spread information about employment opportunities. Emphasis was placed on encouraging previ ously excluded groups to apply for jobs, admisErnest Pasour is a junior at Athens Drive High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. sion to colleges, and so on-after which the actual selection was to be made without regard to group membership.

Affirmative action was originally conceived because it was thought that simply stopping dis crimination against minorities would not over come the results of past employment and pro motion patterns. Prior to the 1960s, employers frequently hired by word of mouth and, conse quently, friends or relatives of current employ ees were more likely to be hired. Kennedy's executive order implied equal ac cess and nothing else. The system that has evolved since is a perversion of the original intent of affirmative action. A shift in emphasis from equality of prospec tive opportunity toward statistical measures of results was already under way by the time the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was debated in Con gress. Quotas and the right of minorities and women to have a "correct" percentage of their population employed have since become rally ing cries for civil rights activists. Affirmative 30 THE FREEMAN. JANUARY 1989 action as it has been applied is detrimental to the operation of the job market, to white males, and to the groups it is supposed to benefit.

First, affirmative action promotes the hiring of less skilled workers. It sometimes forces em ployers to choose the best of the minority work ers they can find, regardless of whether they have the required job skills. For example, Duke University recently adopted a resolution requir ing each department to hire at least one new black for a faculty position by 1993. However, only six blacks received Ph.D. 's in mathemat ics in 1987 in all of the U.S., casting doubts as to whether it would be possible for each depart ment to find a well-qualified black, much less hire one. Colleges and universities frequently also have quotas for how many blacks it is necessary to admit to "round out" their freshman classes. An example is the admission practice at Berke ley. Only 40 percent of the entering class in 1988 were selected solely on the basis of aca demic merit. While whites or Asian-Americans need at least a 3.7 grade point average in high school to be considered for admission, most mi nority candidates who meet a much lower stan dard are automatically admitted. Berkeley con tinues this practice of preferential admissions for minorities even though the graduation rate of minorities is very low. Sixty-six percent of whites or Asian-Americans graduate while only 27 percent of blacks graduate.

An Influence on Curriculum The practice of affirmative action in employ ment and admissions policies is now being ex tended to the selection of writers to be studied at universities. At Stanford, race, gender, and na tionality of authors are to be considered in book selection-not merely the quality of their work. Requiring that books be selected on the basis of such criteria is absurd. The selection of books should be based on merit rather than on the race, gender, or national origin of the authors. The effect of affirmative·action based on quotas rather than merit is that quality suffers, regard less of whether the issue is employment, col lege admissions, or book selection. A closely related point is that affirmative action causes reverse discrimination. Discrimina tion against white males is just as bad as dis crimination against minorities. Some people say that affirmative action is justified as a way of making up for past discrimination. Although discrimination still exists in the U.S., as it does in the rest of the world, most blacks entering the job market today were born after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and have suffered little or no prejudice in terms of salary.

When this Civil Rights Act was passed, its spirit was not one of reverse discrimination but of getting employers to consider applicants ob jectively in filling jobs within their companies. Hubert Humphrey, a major sponsor of the Act, swore that he would eat the bill if it were ever used for discrimination of any sort. The past cannot be changed and we should stop compen sating people who were never hurt at the ex pense of people who have done them no harm. The Alan Bakke Supreme Court case held that it is reverse discrimination to accept a minority student at the expense of a white student with better credentials. Unfortunately, this decision has had little influence in subsequent cases of reverse discrimination. Another problem caused by affirmative ac tion is that it places a stigma on groups which receive preferential treatment, especially on in dividuals in those groups who earn their posi tions because of their ability. Consider an em ployer who hires a member of a minority group for a high position on the basis of merit, not for affirmative action reasons. Other employees, however, are likely to assume that it was an affirmative action hiring, as are many other mi nority hirings. As a result, such employees can suffer from lack of respect which makes them less useful to the company.

The increase in racial tensions between whites and blacks at U.S. colleges, as described in recent news articles, is also related to pref erential admission policies. It is not surprising that racial tensions have grown worse since af firmative action policies were implemented. At colleges in North Carolina, for example, black students recently stated that they were treated like affirmative action cases even if they were not. Professors, seeking to help, asked them if they needed tutoring or other assistance, al ready assuming that blacks were unqualified.