Affirmative Action's False Legacy

By John McWilliams | Wednesday, January 21, 1998

The first time I fully understood the effects of affirmative action was in the Spring of 1995, when I watched an episode of Dateline NBC. The episode was a debate between the proponents and opponents of affirmative action in California. It was also the first time I saw Ward Connerly and the beginnings of Proposition 209.

Before watching this episode, I believed affirmitive action was an extension of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Affirmative action to me was a measure set up to end racial discrimination. I never knew about the quotas, set-asides, timetables, goals, and preferential treatment that went along with affirmative action. However, Dateline NBC presented a full picture, or the pros and cons, of affirmitive action. And the program actually asked the viewer to evaluate California's debate on affirmative action. After the program, my opinion on affirmative action began to change.

I had a debate on affirmative action with my AP European history teacher the day after the Dateline NBC episode. The debate got out of control, and I'll never forget what he said to me: 'The real reason why you got into Dartmouth was because of affirmative action.' These words still bother me to this day.

Because affirmative action is a perplexing issue to me, I decided to do a little research on the history of this policy.

The first time the words 'affirmative action' were uttered in the United States, it was by John F. Kennedy in 1961. In Executive Order 10952, an order that created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Kennedy ordered public employers to 'take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during their employment, without regard to race, creed, color or national origin.' Thus, the original meaning of 'affirmative action' was that the federal government should take an 'affirmative,' or active, role to end racial discrimination.

Kennedy never mentioned racial preferences, goals, timetables, or any other jargon implicit in current use of 'affirmative action.' The Civil Rights Act of 1964 fulfilled his initial goal of 'affirmative action.' This landmark piece of legislation barred racial discrimination in public and private employment, private business practices, and federal government programs.

It was, however, the Philadelphia Plan, created in 1970 during President Nixon's administration, that defined contemporary affirmative action: the one that involves racial preferences, goals, and timetables. In response to the blatant discrimination blacks received from federal construction employers in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Plan enacted federal mandated set-aside programs and racial preferences to counteract discrimination against minorities and women.

I have a hard time understanding why the federal government would enact another law instead of enforcing an existing one, especially when the Philadelphia Plan contradicts the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This has been one of the problems I've had with the current state of affirmative action. I truly believe that if the original civil rights laws were strictly enforced, there would be no use for affirmative action.

It's safe to say that affirmative action had limited success on improving the social conditions of minorities, especially for blacks. Although recent studies show growth of the middle class in the black community, the unemployment rate for blacks was around 10 percent in the last quarter of 1997, over twice the national average. Plus, Randall Kennedy, a Harvard Law Professor and a former Rhodes Scholar, noted that while blacks account for 12 percent of the population, they account for 45 percent of all violent crime in 1992. Current poverty rates for blacks are around 30 percent, almost three times the rates for whites. While high school graduation rates are up, current illiteracy rates for blacks are more than twice the national average.

The stop-gap attitudes of proponents of affirmative action make me believe that affirmative action, after the Philadelphia Plan, wasn't set up to end racial discrimination. Its purpose is to keep racial discrimination in check. Affirmative action is an act of retaliation toward racial discrimination, not a solution.

Although I'm against affirmative action, I understand that racial discrimination won't disappear anytime soon. Most minorities, including myself, have faced some sort of racial discrimination in their lives. But I think it's time we come up with solutions to solve these issues, instead of relying on temporary answers that superficially handle the problem. The social conditions of blacks have hardly improved during the three-decade history of affirmative action. And the evidence is there: a recent study by the American Council of Education showed that there are more black men in prison than in higher learning.

I think the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been largely neglected in the affirmative action debate. It is a foolproof piece of legislation that gives a lot of force to the Fourteenth Amendment. We should strongly enforce and endorse this legislation to dismantle all race-based policies. I think it's time we fulfill Kennedy's version of affirmative action in America.

Affirmative Action's False Legacy

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