Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero!lfd@cbnewsm.ATT.COM From: lfd@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (leland.f.derbenwick) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: AA, continued Summary: EEO is passive, AA active. Same goals, if done right. Message-ID: <6393@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> Date: 10 Nov 89 03:09:31 GMT References: <6561@columbia.edu> <8910300440.AA23901@uunet.uu.net> <3009@splut.conmicro.com> Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 64 Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org In article <3009@splut.conmicro.com>, jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) writes: > In article <2883@cbnewsd.ATT.COM> kja@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (krista.j.anderson) writes: [...] > >a chance. AA means finding the people who were previously chased > >away and giving them a chance. AA is a sign on the door that > >says, "Now you are welcome here, so please come back." > > EEO means finding the people who were previously chased away and giving > them a chance. No, EEO means _permitting_ them to have a chance. AA includes the notion of deliberately seeking out those who have been discriminated against (or who may have been). > [...] > > *Affirmative action is: > [...] > > f) making sure, rather than assuming, that equal opportunities exist > You just gave a very good description of EEO. EEO (when applied!) rules out overt and blatant discrimination. It is essentially passive, assuming that if you aren't _actively_ discriminating against any group, you must be providing equal opportunity. There are so many ways in which discrimination can occur, that lack of blatant discriminatory acts hardly guarantees lack of discrimination. The AA laws are intended to require _active_ behavior to avoid discriminating against certain groups. If applied properly, it is an activist equivalent of EEO. But, since the nature of such behavior is not prescribed (admittedly, I don't see any way to specify it for all cases!), the _easy_ ways to meet the letter of the law, if not its spirit, are to impose stupid quota systems or their equivalents. And far too many places have taken the easy way. (Or done _nothing_, and had the "easy way" imposed upon them from outside.) [...] > Sounds like a good EEO program to me. > The corresponding AA program would stop or restrict hiring males for > that job until some nebulous goal had been reached. [...] > Equal employment opportunity is a Good Thing. > Affirmative action is the antithesis of equal employment opportunity. Some _bad_ _implementations_ of affirmative action are very close to being the antithesis of equal employment opportunity. But you have defined AA to include only those bad implementations. Since AT&T is a very large corporation, it gets watched very closely, so it would be surprising if its implementation of AA did not fall within the letter of the AA laws. Therefore, a definition of AA that doesn't include what AT&T does is probably incomplete. I suspect that there are quite a few companies with other good AA implementations. I'm sure there are lots with bad ones, because its so easy to do almost _anything_ wrong, and I doubt that good AA is ever easy to implement. Speaking strictly for myself, not for AT&T..... -- Lee Derbenwick, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Warren, NJ -- lfd@cbnewsm.ATT.COM or !att!cbnewsm!lfd