The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action

335 Pages·2004·4.61 MB·English

by  Terry H. Anderson

THE PURSUIT OF
FAIRNESS
Also by Terry H. Anderson
The Sixties
The Movement and the Sixties
A Flying Tiger’s Diary (with pilot Charles R. Bond Jr.)
The United States, Great Britain and the Cold War, 1944–1947
THE PURSUIT OF
FAIRNESS

A History of Affirmative Action
Terry H. Anderson

3


2

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Copyright © 2004 by Terry H. Anderson

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anderson, Terry H., 1946–

The pursuit of fairness : a history of affirmative action / by Terry H. Anderson

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-19-515764-8
1. Affirmative action programs—United States—History.

I. Title.

HF5549.5.A34 A53 2004

331.13'3'0973—dc22 2003024637

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Emily and Howard,

and for Rose
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contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

1 Genesis of Affirmative Action 1

2 Civil Rights Struggle and the

Rise of Affirmative Action 49

3 Zenith of Affirmative Action 111

4 Backlash 161

5 Demise of Affirmative Action in

the Age of Diversity 217

Conclusions: The Pursuit of Fairness 275

Sources 285

Notes 287

Select Bibliography 304

Index 313
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preface

As the nine robed justices listened to the arguments in the
cases against the University of Michigan in April 2003, several thousand
rallied outside on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court Building. They
had come from many universities, including Harvard, Penn State, U.C.
Berkeley, Howard, Georgetown, and especially, Michigan. Most were
black, some whites and Hispanics, and many held signs as they listened
to speakers Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III, and the Rev. Jesse Jack-
son. “We must fight this fight,” Jackson declared, and then the crowd
joined him in chanting, “The struggle is not over.”
Others hoped it was over, including two white women. Jennifer
Gratz had applied to become an undergraduate at the university, and
Barbara Grutter had sought acceptance into the law school. Denied
admission, the two women sued in separate cases, claiming that the
university’s policy violated their rights under the 1964 Civil Rights Act
and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the
U.S. Constitution.
That policy was affirmative action. The university had used race as
one of the many criteria for admission.
Ten weeks later, in June, the Supreme Court issued its decisions, the
most crucial ones concerning higher education since the late 1970s. By
a narrow 5 to 4 majority, the Court again found affirmative action con-
stitutional. Writing for the majority, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
declared, “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial prefer-
ences will no longer be necessary.”
The response was immediate and expected. “The court’s decision is
a great victory for American higher education,” declared the former
x | Preface
University of Michigan president, Lee C. Bollinger, “and for the nation
as a whole.” Not so, wrote African American conservative Thomas Sow-
ell. The majority opinion made “a mockery of the law....This decision
provoked not only dissent from four other justices but also sarcasm and
disgust—as it should have.”
Affirmative action. It has been a public policy for four decades, per-
haps it will be for 25 more years, and it always raises emotions, con-
tentious debate, and all too often charges of racism. Both sides claim
moral superiority. Supporters declare themselves the champions of
racial justice, protectors of Martin Luther King’s Dream, while oppo-
nents see themselves as the defenders of merit, of colorblind equal pro-
tection enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. One thing is clear: the
arguments of both sides have merit and are legitimate, and that in itself
makes affirmative action an American dilemma.
The battle over affirmative action has led not to clarity but to confu-
sion. Over the decades opinion polls have demonstrated that many cit-
izens think the federal government mandates that all employers have
quotas to help minorities and women. Fathers often are convinced that
their sons cannot get into an elite college or professional school because
he is not the right race or gender. Whites often think that affirmative
action simply means reverse discrimination or quotas.
By the twenty-first century, pundits, lawyers, journalists, and aca-
demics had written dozens of books and thousands of articles on affir-
mative action. Unfortunately, many of these only added to the
confusion. Most of the books were polemics, some were confessions of
“affirmative action babies,” while historians wrote studies that focused
only on one aspect of the topic, such as the Bakke case, or one era, such
as the 1960s.
This book is unique—the first history of affirmative action that
traces the development of the policy from its genesis in the Great
Depression and World War II era to the University of Michigan cases in
2003. It defines affirmative action during various presidential adminis-
trations and will demonstrate how its definition and rationale have
changed significantly during the last half century. It examines how and
why various presidential administrations established, expanded, and
then diminished the policy, and how the U.S. Supreme Court changed
affirmative action since its first ruling on it in 1971.