Revisiting Affirmative Action in Leveling the Playing Field

• Author: G.L.A. Harris
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X09348911
• Date: 01 December 2009
• Published date: 01 December 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

Review of Public Personnel
Administration
Volume 29 Number 4
December 2009 354-372
© 2009 Sage Publications
Revisiting Affirmative Action
10.1177/0734371X09348911
http://roppa.sagepub.com
in Leveling the Playing Field
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
Who Have Been the True
Beneficiaries Anyway?
g. L. a. Harris
Portland State University
affirmative action is an amalgam of federal, state, and local ordinances and other
legislative mandates to remedy inequities in employment for traditionally marginalized
groups. The need for such programs continues to be debated given varying evidence
that affirmative action has not been as even handed as proponents have touted. This
article explores the extent to which affirmative action, after more than 40 years, has
leveled the playing field in the workplace for women and minorities. In essence, who
have been the true beneficiaries of affirmative action?
Keywords: affirmative action; women; underrepresented minorities; federal contrac-
tors; glass ceiling; disparities; beneficiaries
You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying “now you are free to go where
you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.” You do not take a man
who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the start of a race,
saying “you are free to compete with others,” and still justly believe you have been
completely fair.
President Lyndon Johnson, June 4, 1965, Howard University (Richardson &
Lancendorfer, 2004, p. 76 [as cited in the Black Commentator 2003]; Katznelson, 2005).
President Johnson’s words still ring true today and highlight the uneven legacy
of one of the most vexing issues of the day, affirmative action. given continuing
spirited debates about the merits and status of the policy, affirmative action remains
a national dilemma. affirmative action is an amalgam of Federal executive Orders
11246 and 11375 (Holzer & Neumark 2000; Pynes, 2009; Riccucci, 2002), state,
and local ordinances and other administrative mandates given court decisions
(Pynes, 2009) instituted as a remedy for inequities in employment for traditionally
marginalized groups. Its intent is to prohibit discrimination in employment on the
basis of certain factors, among them gender, race, and/or ethnicity. But long after its
inception more than 40 years ago, the effectiveness and potential of affirmative
action may have yet to be realized. arguably, the Johnson administration’s vision for
354

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Harris / Revisiting affirmative action in Leveling the Playing Field 355
affirmative action may have failed to deliver on its promises to close the gaps
between the haves and the have nots (Katznelson, 2005).
although there have been employment gains for women and underrepresented
minorities,1 the need for such programs continues to be debated given the conflicting
evidence about whether affirmative action has been sufficiently even handed in its
distribution of benefits. For instance, although there have been gains at the federal
level in the number of women and minorities2 in the Senior executive Service (SeS)
and developmental pools (gS14-15) from 2000 through 2007, these increases were
not reflected in all government agencies (general accountability Office [gaO],
2008; Pynes, 2009). Sustained efforts through succession planning are needed to
address anticipated shortfalls in leadership. Similarly, although the education gap
between men and women has narrowed, and an increasing and unprecedented number
of doctoral degrees have been conferred on women, significant rank and wage dis-
parities remain between men and women, even after controlling for experience and
job tenure (West & Curtis, 2006). and, earning gaps also persist between Whites and
underrepresented minorities, especially Blacks, despite improvements (Crosby, 2004;
Holzer & Neumark, 2000).
Proponents of affirmative action claim that without such efforts employment dis-
crimination against traditionally underrepresented groups would have been worse
(Bergmann, 1996; Tien, 1997). Some go so far as to argue that organizations use diver-
sity to circumvent the legal mandates of affirmative action (Nkomo, 1992; Riccucci,
1997b; Wise, 2005). Thus, the relatively recent emphasis on diversity may be under-
mining the original intent of affirmative action whose goals implicitly include diver-
sity but are not exhausted by it. Others see a moral imperative for instituting affirmative
action policies (Pratkanis & Turner, 1999; Soni, 1999) and the charge of reverse dis-
crimination as unfounded (Pincus, 2003; Wise, 2005). Still others believe that affirma-
tive action endures because of its roots in civil rights (Lipson, 2008).
Critics of affirmative action though assert that adopting such programs is dictated
primarily by politics and the associated advocacy group pressure brought to bear (La
Noue & Sullivan, 2001). They charge that the policy has not only created an overin-
clusion of groups (Leiter & Leiter, 2002) but also what amounts to quotas or prefer-
ential consideration for some groups (Blum & Levin, 2000; Connerly, 2000; Holmes,
1997; Rodriguez, 1982; Steele, 1991) to worse yet, reverse discrimination (Dworkin,
2000; Pincus, 2003). The Clinton administration’s “Mend it, don’t end it” policy
failed abysmally to appease critics (Crosby, 2004) and possibly helped to increase the
uncertainty of affirmative action as a public policy. and, the Bush administration was
far more successful in wielding its influence in the 2003 University of Michigan U.S.
Supreme Court decisions (Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger) to prevent the
use of race as an admissions policy criterion (Wise, 2005).
Through retrospection, this article examines whether affirmative action has had
the intended effect of leveling the playing field in today’s workplace between White
men and women in general, and between Whites and underrepresented minorities.

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356 Review of Public Personnel administration
Here, affirmative action is discussed in terms of using important factors such as gen-
der, race, and/or ethnicity to bolster the gains in employment of women and under-
represented minorities and, as a result, the diversity that doing so brings to the
american workforce. It is argued that, although affirmative action has been effective
in employing these factors, there has also been a regression of further progress as
evidenced in the glass ceiling, wage disparities, and job segregation of these groups.
What this article will demonstrate is how the contentious debates, unclear goals,
inconsistent application, mixed court decisions, and the lack of political will continue
to make affirmative action a target, especially in its compromised form as diversity,
an attempt to adopt a middle ground answer to critics. Who are the true beneficiaries
of affirmative action then remains a key question. although this article in no way
advocates the sole use of gender, race, and/or ethnicity in making employment deci-
sions, the author concludes that given the legacy of discrimination for certain groups,
failure to support the original intent of affirmative action, and in doing so, negating
the role of gender, race, and/or ethnicity in such decisions, undermines the efforts of
the ideals inherent in a democratic society and a representative bureaucracy.
An Inconsistent Public Policy
The capacity for affirmative action to succeed has been consistently stymied by a
number of factors: ongoing raucous debates, the waxing and waning of support of the
policy by lawmakers and past presidents, the failure of lawmakers and sitting presi-
dents to clearly define the conditions for affirmative action, the inconsistent applica-
tion of the policy due in part to its erosion over time by the courts given conservative
federal judges, and the recent tendency of employers to couch affirmative action
under the guise of diversity.
Debates about affirmative action have prompted doubts about its legitimacy. The
opposition has been relentless in exaggerating the effects of quotas and preferential
treatment as reverse discrimination. Wise (2005) treats this critique as a kind of false
victimization. In Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), for instance, there is no evidence that
despite the use of the point system by the University of Michigan, that the litigants
argued that admitted minority students were unqualified. The primary litigant did not
dispute the fact that approximately 1,400 other nonunderrepresented minorities with
lower scores and overall grades than hers were admitted to the University. Neither
did the litigant argue that 2,000 other nonunderrepresented minorities with even
higher scores and overall grades than hers were not admitted. Therefore, for the pri-
mary litigant to make the claim that unqualified underrepresented minorities were
being admitted to the university over her, is unwarranted (Wise, 2005). Furthermore,
the primary litigant’s score and overall grades were such that even in the absence of
an affirmative action program at the university, she would not have been admitted
because more than 2,000 White and asian students were ahead of her. The verdict
and issues surrounding this case are therefore misleading. Similarly, in University of

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Harris / Revisiting affirmative action in Leveling the Playing Field 357
California v. Bakke (1978) in which the court ruled that it was unconstitutional that
the litigant’s 14th amendment rights were violated, and on appeal, the U.S. Supreme...