You Decide

… that race-based affirmative action doesn’t help the people who most need it?

It’s difficult to assess the impact of affirmative action programs, but most studies show that over the last 30 years, there has been an increase in the number of minorities and women in schools and workplaces. Although that’s good, it doesn’t reflect progress due to affirmative action among populations living in poverty. After all, we still have substantial numbers of people living in poverty in this country: 37.3 million folks, or about 12.5 percent of the country’s population, according to census data. That’s down from the 20 percent or so that it was when the census started keeping poverty data records in 1959, but the percentage has ticked upward since 2000. Poverty disproportionately affects blacks and Latinos in aggregate, but there are serious differences between the opportunities available to the Latino and black middle class versus those available to the Latino and black poor.

A 2007 poll from the Pew Center showed that about 60 percent of blacks believe that the black middle class and the black poor have different value systems — to the point that four out of 10 blacks felt that black people could no longer be considered a single race. Black people who don’t finish school, go to college or get well-paid jobs are statistically more likely to be from low-income communities than from middle- or higher-income communities. This reality points toward the conclusion that socioeconomic status, not race, is the real stumbling block.  

For years, experts have suggested that the focus on race is a distraction from the real issue: class and social inequity. They say race-based preferences do not adequately address intra-race class disparities, let alone the pervasive problem of poverty. It’s the poor — whether they are rural or urban, whether they are black, Latino or white — who suffer the most from bad schools, bad nutrition and health care, and limited opportunities in this world. Affirmative action, they say, is effectively a middle-class policy: It does little to help the poor.

Affirmative action would be more effective, these critics argue, if economics, not skin color, were the system’s criteria; then poor people of all colors would benefit.

… that race and gender considerations enforced by affirmative action help ensure diversity in education and the workplace?

One of the original goals of affirmative action programs was to integrate schools and workplaces so that they would be truly representative of America’s diverse population. Since the earliest court challenges to affirmative action policies, the U.S. Supreme Court has maintained that the government has an overriding compelling interest in diversity. These rulings are rooted in the notion that diversity enriches any environment: Whether in a school or the workplace, diversity ensures that those within the organization are more responsive to the needs of the wider population, and it allows for real interaction between different types of people and helps dismantle stereotypes.

In 2003, the Supreme Court considered two affirmative action cases from the University of Michigan, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, both of which focused on how the university’s undergraduate and law schools were considering race in admissions. Through a shootout of amicus (friend of the court) briefs, both cases shed light on how important diversity is to the success of our society.

One amicus brief in support of race- and gender-based admissions programs was filed by a group of high-ranking military officers who asserted that diversity was of paramount importance to the military’s institutional stability and, by extension, to national security. The military, they argued, is one of the most integrated organizations in America, and among enlisted soldiers, its enrollment mirrors the demographics of the country. But that’s not traditionally the case among officers, where the numbers are far more skewed in favor of white males. The military honchos noted that having a disproportionate number of white men in charge of so many minorities and women undermines the military’s harmony and increases resentment in the ranks and that such a dynamic prevents the military from functioning at its best.

Thanks to programs that target, recruit and place officers with some attention to race and gender, the number of minorities and women officers has increased considerably, thereby making the military stronger. In the 1970s, only about 3 percent of officers in the military were black, but by 2003, they represented about 8 percent of the officer corps — still not a huge number, but better than it was. But take away those affirmative action programs, the brief argued, and the strength of the military will take a hit: “At present, the military cannot achieve an officer corps that is both highly qualified and racially diverse unless the service academies and the ROTC use limited race-conscious recruiting and admissions policies.”

A second amicus brief, from 65 Fortune 500 companies, including Intel and American Express, defended race-based considerations at the university level using a similar argument: Admissions at the University of Michigan ensured that their corporations had a qualified and diverse hiring pool, and diversity is key to success in a global business environment. The brief cited Microsoft’s diversity track record: In 1997, minorities accounted for 16.8 percent of its workforce, and the company’s success was dependent upon increasing the number of minority and women employees, which reached 25.6 percent in 2003. Diversity, this brief also argued, is paramount to ensuring that their teams could see issues from multiple perspectives and do business in diverse environments, thereby ensuring the company’s success.

In short, many regard affirmative action preferences as key to organizational strength and success.