In Defense of Affirmative Action PDF
Preview In Defense of Affirmative Action
In Defense of Affirmative Action "Barljara Bergmann cuts throuoh tlie nonsense and obfuscation swirlinii aionnd this debate and replaces i—t with good old common sense.' Susan Fahidi BARBARA BERGMANN R. In Defense of Affirmative Action BARBARA BERGMANN R. ANewRepublicBook BasicBooks ADivisionofHarperCollins/'«Wis/?ers © Copyright 1996 by BasicBooks, ADivision ofHarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States ofAmerica. No part of this book may be reproduced in anymannerwhatsoeverwithoutwritten permission except in the case ofbriefquotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Forinformation,address BasicBooks, 10 East 53rd Street, NewYork,NY 10022-5299. DesignedbyElliottBeard LibraryofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bergmann, Barbara R. In defense ofaffirmative action / BarbaraR. Bergmann. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN0-465-09833 9 (cloth) ISBN 0-465-09834-7 (paper) — 1.Affimiative action programs—Tnited States. 2. Minorities Emplovment -Government policy—United States. I.Title. HF5549.5.A34B47 1996 331.13'30973 dc20 95-40201 CIP /RRD 97 9899 00 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To the two white men I know best, my husband Fred and my son David, who want a world better than the one we have Contents Acknowledgments ix one Thinking about Affirmative Action 1 two Is Discrimination a Thing ofthe Past? 32 three How Exckision Occurs 62 four Goals: SpUtting the Pie 83 five Thinking about Fairness 98 CONTENTS viii six Does Affirmative Action Hurt Its Intended Beneficiaries? 131 seven Opinions Pro and Con 149 eight Alternatives to Affirmative Action 166 Notes 181 Index 199 Acknowledgments i hanks are due to Robert Post, Harriet Baber, Fred Bergmann, Faye Crosby, Fred Graham, Mary Gray, Heidi Hartmann, Emily Hoffnar, JuHe Nelson, Bernice San- dler,Air Force Lt. C. Smith, SandraTangri, and Carol Ullman, all ofwhom read parts ofthe manuscript in its various incarnations. Some of the material in chapter 7 previously appeared in "Probingthe Opposition toAffirmativeAction," Gender, Work, and Organization 2, no. 2 (April 1995), and is reprinted with permis- sion.The photograph on p. 140, © 1991 by the WashingtonPost, is reprinted with permission. Thinking about Affirmative Action W hen Bill Clinton was campaign- ing forthe presidency in 1992 as the candidate ofthe Democratic Party,he promisedto appointacabinetthat"looked likeAmerica." At the time Clinton made his rather poetic promise, nobody, including his political enemies, spoke out against it. Nobody said that attempting to fulfill that promise would be a bad idea. A cabinetthat really looks like theAmerican labor force would have six ofits fourteen seats filled by white and minority women k and two of its seats filled by minority men. As Clinton's cabinet selection process was approaching its end in early 1993, only two ofthe appointments had gone to women. Feminist organizations, 1 2 IN DEFENSE OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION concerned that women would again be restricted to the marginal role they had played in all previous administrations, urged pub- licly that more women be appointed. Women reporters at Clin- ton's news conferences kept asking him about it. This pressure provoked an angry outburst from Clinton. He said that those pressing him to appoint more women were "play- ing quota games" with the selection process, implying in his response that he himselfdisapproved ofquotas. The truth, how- ever, was that Clinton did want to appoint more women than his predecessors had, and he had apparently decided that three was the number he wanted. Many reasonable people would call that "setting up a quota," since Clinton was trying to appoint women to apredetermined numberofslots.Atthatpoint,with fewvacan- cies left, the simplest and most practical way to ensure the appointment ofa third woman was to earmark one ofthe remain- ing slots for a woman.That Clinton had done so became nakedly obvious when his first female candidate for the office ofattorney general ran into trouble. He then putforward a second woman for thejob and discarded herin turnwhen a problem arose. His third woman candidate was appointed and confirmed. She, like the other two, was obviously capable, qualified, and experienced. But bythattime itwas clearthat Clinton had not been lookingfor the "best person" for the post of attorney general without regard to sex or race—he had been looking for the "best woman." The Clinton cabinet episode raises questions that always arise when attempts are made to increase the gender and racial diver- THINKING ABOUT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION 3 sitv in any group of employees. One fundamental question is whether diversitN ofsex or race or ethnicity in the cabinet was a worthy and important goal. How much harm would have been done if Clinton had appointed a cabinet consisting entirely or almost entirely ofwhite males.^ He might simply have explained that each cabinet officer he appointed was, in his honest opinion, the best he could select from the wide range ofcandidates ofboth sexes and all ethnic and racial groups that he had considered. Would real harm have been done to the country's interests? Inthinkingabout that,we can note that presidents have always taken care to see that all geographic regions are well represented in the cabinet. Seeking that kind of diversity is not considered wrong;itis thought ofasjust beingfairto all sections ofthe coun- try. People in the West would be surprised and suspicious and hurt ifthe cabinet turned out to contain only people from east of the Mississippi. Clinton's selection ofa cabinet that was markedly short of women and minorities would have done something far worse—it would have dealt a major setback to the pride and sta- tus of people in those groups. It would have strengthened the hand ofthose who think women, blacks, and other minorities do bestinthejobs theyhave traditionallyheld and should staythere. A second question is whether Clinton could have succeeded in assemblingareasonablydiversecabinetwithoutsettingup numer- ical goals by race and sex. Could he have avoided a cabinet that was completely or almost completely composed of white males without paying attention to the race and sex ofthe candidates as
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