One way to promote equal opportunity and correct past discrimination is through affirmative action. Since the mid-1960s, major government contractors have been required by presidential executive order to adopt written affirmative action plans including goal, actions and timetables for promoting better equality in the workplace. The purpose is to reduce job discrimination by encouraging organizations to take positive, i.e., affirmative, action steps to overcome past employment practices and traditions that may have been discriminatory. (Lawrence and Weber, 2014)
Affirmative action became increasingly controversial in the 1990s and early 200s. For example, new laws such as Proposition 209 in California were passed banning or limiting affirmative action programs in public hiring and university admissions. The issue was also debated in Congress and in the courts. Proponents of affirmative action argued that these programs provided an important tool for achieving equal opportunity. In this view, women and minorities continued to face discriminatory barriers and affirmative action was necessary to balance the playing field. Some large corporations backed affirmative action programs, finding them helpful in monitoring their progress in providing equal job opportunity. For example, General Electric (GE), AT&T and IBM said that they would continue to use affirmative action goals and timeframe schedules even if they were not required by law. (Lawrence and Weber, 2014)
Some organizations use quotas, goals, and timeframes schedules for affirmative action. This includes training programs to meet the needs of employees who have been discriminated against in the past, and in some cases less qualified applicants may have to be hired or promoted in order to accomplish affirmative action. In addition, when employees retire, resign or are fired, they should be replaced - at all level, including management, by members of those groups that have been discriminated against. Some organizations feel the government should mandate affirmative action employment practices and enforce them fully in all businesses by withholding government contracts and funding and imposing fines and prison sentences when and where necessary. (Thiroux and Krasemann, 2015)
Reverse discrimination is a term that describes the plight of some, mostly white males, who have in turn been discriminated against when affirmative action programs have been implemented. For example, reverse discrimination would occur if a company hired an African American man or woman who was less qualified than a white person, either because of the person's race or sex. However, reverse discrimination occurs when one group (ethnic, race) is unintentionally discriminated against in an effort to help another group. For example, if a more qualified white man were passed over for a job as a police officer in favor of a less qualified Hispanic man to remedy past discrimination in a police department, this might be unfair to the white candidate. (Thiroux and Krasemann, 2015)
In 2009, the US Supreme Court heard a case brought by Frank Ricci, a white fireman in New Haven, Connecticut. Earlier, Ricci had taken an exam for promotion to lieutenant and had scored sixth among 77 candidates. However, the city decided to discard the results, because none of the 19 African-Americans who took the test qualified for promotion. Ricci and 19 other firemen (one who was Hispanic) then sued the city, saying they had been the victim of reverse discrimination. The city defended its action, saying the test was flawed. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the firemen plaintiffs, saying they had been subjected to race discrimination "solely because the higher-scoring candidates were white." (Lawrence and Weber, 2014)
Critics of affirmative action also argued that these programs could actually stigmatize or demoralize the very groups they were designed to help. For example, if a company hired a woman for a top management post, other people might think she got the job just because of affirmative action preferences, even if she were truly the best qualified. This might undermine her effectiveness on the job (along with organization) or even cause her to question her own abilities. For this reason, some women and persons of color called for less emphasis on affirmative action, preferring to achieve personal success without preferential treatment. (Lawrence and Weber, 2014)
Additional arguments for discrimination, a business's employment practices are its own affair. If employers want to hire white males, then they have the right to do so without interference because they are the owners of their businesses. In addition, even if one accepts the notion that there has been discrimination in the past, this is seldom the fault of present employers, therefore they should not have to correct deficiencies they did not cause. Employers should not have to hire less qualified people in order to "integrate" their businesses, nor should they have to provide additional training to people who are unqualified simply in order to make up for past discrimination. (Thiroux and Krasemann, 2015)
References
Lawrence, Anne T. and
Weber, James (2014). Business and Society: Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy
(14th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Thiroux, Jacques P. and Krasemann,
Keith W. (2015). Ethics: Theory and Practice (11th ed.). New York: Pearson
Education, Inc.
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