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From: ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.flame
Subject: Re: AA and guilt
Message-ID: <3874@alice.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Jun-85 15:45:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: alice.3874
Posted: Wed Jun 19 15:45:22 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Jun-85 10:15:45 EDT
References: <471@ttidcc.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 45
Xref: watmath net.women:5947 net.flame:10639

> guilty of what?  AA isn't on trial, and neither are you.  If an employer
> ignores the guidelines determined by the govt., they may be found guilty,
> but guilty of ignoring the guidelines, period.  "innocent until proven
> guilty" is a legal concept.

> Now the guidelines were put in place because people WERE guilty of
> discrimination, but unless you are an employer who refuses to attempt
> to implement the guidelines, you aren't guilty of anything.  We don't
> try bigots for bigotry, we try them for something else.  Motives aren't
> on trial. Actions (or the lack thereof) are.

I worked at Columbia University in the early Seventies.  They had an
exchange with the (then) department of Health, Education, and Welfare
that went somewhat like this:

HEW: We have decided that you might be practicing illegal discrimination
in your hiring and promotion practices.  Therefore, we insist you prove
to us that you are not doing so.  Otherwise we will revoke the tax-exempt
status of the university and you will be forced to shut down.

CU: Can you tell us what you think we are doing wrong?

HEW: We have no evidence that you're doing anything wrong; we just want
you to prove that you're not.

CU: In order to do that, we would have to go back and look at everyone's
records, so that we could compile statistics breaking down hirings,
firings, promotions, and salaries by sex and race.

HEW: That's right.  And if those statistics show you're absolutely
clean, we'll leave you alone until next year.

CU: But in order to do that, we have to put the sex and race of all
our employees into their personnel files.

HEW: That's right.

CU: But up to now, it has been illegal to do that!  You are asking us
to give you statistics based on information that it was ILLEGAL to
gather at the time!  Sure, we can go around and ask each of our tens
of thousands of employees about their racial background.  But what about
the ones who have left?  And how can you demand that we come up with
illegal information?

HEW: That is your problem, not ours.