Affirmative reaction.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Affirmative action programs - Editorial

Interethnic turf wars and the absurdity of racial classification

RECENT COMMENTS BY TIRSO DEL Junco, vice chairman of the Postal Service Board of Governors, illuminate a looming new battle over the benefits of affirmative action. Civil rights devotees may lament this turn, yet it is an almost inevitable result of trumping individual merit with group rights.

Del Junco slashed at already fraying ties among the civil rights community by announcing there are too many African Americans working for the post office in certain cities--at the expense of Latinos. By the logic of the anti-discrimination maven, he is right. Blacks are highly over-represented among postal workers in Los Angeles compared to their share of the population. While they are only 9.6 percent of the labor force, they make up 63 percent of postal workers. A General Accounting Office survey showed a similar situation in Chicago: Blacks, while only 18.2 percent of the available labor pool, make up 79.7 percent of postal workers. In Los Angeles, a Latino labor market presence of 34 percent translates into only 15 percent of post office jobs.

Under civil rights law, this is a prima facie case of discrimination. The 1991 Civil Rights Act cemented into law the principle, already used in practice by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, that if your employee pool has a different proportion of races and ethnicities than the available labor pool, you can be liable for a discrimination suit.

Opponents of affirmative action argue that there are many reasons besides blatant discrimination to explain disproportionate ethnic or racial representation in the workplace. Affirmative action advocates tended to scoff. Now, in the face of Del Junco's fulminations, they are tendering defenses that--while valid--they have dismissed in other circumstances.

Charly Amos, the Postal Service's manager of affirmative action, points out that applicants for postal jobs go through objective written examinations. Except for military veterans, who get a slight boost, all comers are treated equally in the test grading. Amos thinks the preponderance of black postal workers in certain cities can be explained by networks of friends and community leaders who keep them informed about tests and hiring.

The actual hiring process, Amos says, leaves no play for personal bias. If postal hiring is done strictly by testable merit--and Del Junco presented no contrary evidence--then Amos's position as affirmative action...