Affirmative action has a long history in the United States, dating back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt averting a march on Washington, DC by 100,000 African American men protesting racial hiring biases in the defense industry. Since that time, a large number of executive orders and legislative acts have been signed into law, which limits the ability of the military, government agencies, and business to be selective in who they hire, promote, and fire. Although falling short of establishing policies that attempt to compensate for past wrongs against underrepresented demographics, current affirmative action guidelines are designed to eventually achieve workplace diversity through attrition and fair selection processes.
Affirmative Action has a long history; going back to the felt need by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to avert a march on Washington, DC in 1941 by 100,000 African-Americans who were protesting discriminatory hiring practices in the defense industry (Anderson 22). The signing of Executive Order 8802 began the long, multi-decade process of ending Jim Crow policies, racial segregation, and other forms of discrimination in the military, government agencies, and corporation throughout the United States.
Although the arguments on both sides of this issue have varied over the years, the essence of affirmative action has been to end ongoing workplace discriminatory policies based on race, gender, age, or disability, and attempt to compensate for a long history of such policies that have led to overrepresentation of the majority demographic in the workforce. In the United States, this demographic has traditionally been healthy, young White males.
Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, 1978 (Guidelines)
The Guidelines define what employers are required to do under federal law when assessing the fitness of a person for employment or promotion (Saad, Carter, Rothenberg, and Israelson, 1999). Based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967, amended Civil Rights Act of 1972, and the establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1972, the Guidelines help employers and employees understand their rights and responsibilities under the law. These Guidelines have been revised by subsequent worker's rights statues, but the basic approach to affirmative action has remained unchanged.
The Guidelines lay out what must be done during employee selection processes to prevent discrimination and promote workplace diversity (Saad, Carter, Rothenberg, and Israelson 2-3 to 2-4). In particular, testing instruments that assess a candidates aptitude or cognitive abilities should be fair and unbiased in order to insure that they do not create an 'adverse' outcome. Adverse outcomes are defined as the creation of a racial, gender, age, or disability bias in hiring, promotion, referral, termination, licensing, certification, and disciplinary actions. Such tests can measure academic achievement, cognitive abilities, personality, and ethical orientations, but the candidate cannot be probed for demographic information under the law.
Should anyone complain that a company's or agency's selection process is creating an adverse impact then the four/fifths rule can be used to determine whether the allegations have any merit (Saad, Carter, Rothenberg, and Israelson 2-4). Under this rule, if a selection process results on a demographic being represented less than 80% of the time then an adverse impact has occurred. Should this be the case, then the selection process must be eliminated, revised, or justified.
Justification for the use of a selection process that results in an adverse outcome, based on court rulings, must be based on business necessity and be relevant to the work situation (Saad, Carter, Rothenberg, and Israelson 2-5). Business necessity can be justified if it can be shown that safety and operational efficiency will suffer without the selection process in question, and if no viable alternatives are available. Professions that have traditionally justified a selection process, which results in an adverse impact, include law enforcement and military personnel. These professions tend to select for young candidates able to demonstrate physical fitness.
The Impact of Affirmative Action
Although the American workforce still has a long ways to go before it equals the diversity of the populace (Schultz and Schultz 69-75), substantial strides have been made in a few areas. For example, the percentage of women in the workforce has reached 47% (Bureau of Labor Statistics), which is almost equal to the percent of adult women (50.8%) living in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau). However, reports of informal discriminatory policies by employers continue to generate biases in terms of salaries and career advancement opportunities, and women continue to dominate 'pink' collar jobs (Schultz and Schultz 69-75). African-American males continue to suffer from discriminatory policies, whether intentional or unintentional, and the result is a relatively high unemployment and underemployment rate for this demographic. Substantial improvements have been made in increasing the prevalence of disabled workers, although the surge in discrimination litigation after passage of the American Disabilities Act has resulted in increased reticence to hire disabled workers. In addition, age discrimination continues to be prevalent.
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