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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.social,net.women,net.flame
Subject: Re: Re: Discrimination and Affirmative Action
Message-ID: <643@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Jun-85 08:53:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxl.643
Posted: Mon Jun  3 08:53:50 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Jun-85 01:06:14 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
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Mark Modig's article reflects some common misconceptions about
Affirmative Action programs and hiring goals:
> From Mark Modig: 
> What the above definition of affirmative action does is impose
> quotas on a business.  About 51% of your employees must be women,
> about 49% must be men, (the rest I guess could be anything), and
> similarly for a racial distribution.  I am assuming that these
> quotas are based on national figures, as the racial makeup of
> different areas of the country can be quite disparate.
> 
This is *not true*.  Affirmative Action does *not* mean that any employer
*must* hire 51% women , 11% blacks, and x% other minorities.  It means
that employers should strive to attain these goals and make progress
towards attaining them.
 
> These quotas are inherently unfair, in my view, because one of the
> primary determinations of an applicant's fitness for a job would be
> whether or not the applicant was of the proper race and sex.
> 
Again, this is simply *not* true. Nobody is saying that any black high school
dropout can apply for a job as a programmer and any other kind of job and
get hired simply because she is black. The *primary* determinants of any
hiring decision are qualifications to do the job.  The fact is that in
many fields there are actually many more people qualified to do the job
than there are job openings.  The other fact is that discrimination has been
entrenched in many places and exists today.  Right now there is not a single
black dancer in the Rockettes of Radio City Music Hall. Not one.  In fact
there have been over 5000 Rockettes since they were founded-and in over 40 years
not a single one of them has been black, red or anything but lily-white.
Is this because there are no qualified black female dancers? Certainly not.
It is because of an entrenched policy of white only dancers.
The same thing occurs on a smaller scale throughout this country sad to say.
> 
> It would be conceivable under such a system that I couldn't hire
> people I wanted to hire because they weren't of the proper sex or
> race.  To me, that's not fair.
> 
If somebody is unequivocally the best-qualified applicant then 
there is nothing to stop that person being hired so long as s/he
is a U.S. citizen.  However if "I want to hire fellow white good ole
boys" *because they are "white good ole boys" then that is unfair.  
In fact that is what often happens.
Affirmative Action programs attempt to counter that inherent bias.

> What is fair?  Well, my company's affirmative action policy as I
> understand it comes pretty close I think.  First and foremost in
> consideration is the applicant's ability, along with experience,
> personability, would the applicant get along well with others, etc.
> Then, and only then, would affirmative action considerations come
> into play.  Essentially, the policy is to use affirmative action
> considerations to break a tie that can't reasonably be broken in any
> other way.  But along with this are workshops held here to let
> current employees gain an understanding of the problems faced by
> minorities and women and to explain the affirmative action policy, plus
> presentations at schools and other places encouraging minorities and
> women to consider applying.
> Mark Modig

Your company's affirmative action policy, Mark, is *precisely* what
affirmative action programs are! They are not "mandated quotas" they are
not meant to make hiring decisions based solely upon race or sex, they
are not meant to discriminate against *any* group.  They are meant to
give groups which have always been discriminated against an even break.
The Rockettes are simply one among thousands of groups and organizations
which have not given discrminated groups an even break.
                tim sevener whuxl!orb