Of particular relevance to a discussion of affirmative action are the results regarding White beliefs about discrimination against White people. “Although only one-quarter (25 percent) of the public believe that whites face a lot of discrimination in America today, a significantly larger number express concern about the existence of so-called ‘reverse discrimination’ against whites. More than four in ten (43 percent) Americans say that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.”3
Not surprisingly, when those results are broken down by race, there are significant differences between groups. Half (50 percent) of White Americans agree that discrimination against Whites has become a problem equivalent to that against people of color. That percentage is even higher among working-class Whites (60 percent), with 39 percent of working-class Whites disagreeing. Among White college-educated Whites, the percentages are almost exactly reversed. Only 36 percent of that group agrees that discrimination against Whites is equal to discrimination against people of color, while 63 percent of college-educated Whites disagree. Among Blacks and Hispanics, there is widespread disagreement (74 percent and 70 percent, respectively) with the idea that discrimination against Whites is as big a problem as discrimination against people of color, yet there are some who do agree with that statement (25 percent of Blacks and 29 percent of Hispanics).
Of course, the survey doesn’t tell us why the participants hold the views that they hold, only that they do. It is puzzling to look at the survey results against factual data about racial gaps on measures of social or economic well-being. Whether we consider measures of housing, education, the labor market, the criminal justice system, the media, politics, or health care, Whites as a group fare better than just about every other racial/ethnic group in the United States on measures of access, participation, and success.4 I reviewed some of the information about disparities in housing, education, the criminal justice system, and politics (voting) in the prologue of this book. Drawing on data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bell and her colleagues highlight labor market patterns:
For example, the highest-paying occupational categories in management, professional, and related occupations are dominated by whites (39%) and Asians (50%) compared with Blacks (29%) and Hispanics (20%). At the lower end of the occupational ladder, we see the reverse: Latinos are overrepresented in lower-paying fields of agriculture (50%), grounds maintenance (45%), and maids and housekeeping (44%), while Blacks are slotted into jobs as aides in nursing, psychiatric, and home health care (36%), bus drivers (27%), and security guards and gaming surveillance officers (27%). Asians make up a majority of manicurists, pedicurists, skin care specialisits, barbers, and cosmetologists (57%), as well as 29% of software developers, and 22% of physicians and surgeons. Whites are at the top of the occupational pyramid, accounting for 96% of farmers, ranchers, and agricultural managers; 93% of construction managers; and 91% of chief executives.5
Only 3 percent of executives, senior-level officials, and managers in the US are Black. Only 4 percent of doctors and 5 percent of attorneys are Black.6 Additionally, a 2016 analysis of federal government data by the Pew Research Center finds that Blacks are, on average, at least twice as likely as Whites to be poor or to be unemployed; in 2014 the median White household income was $71,300 while the median Black household income was $43,300. Little has changed in twenty years. Back then the median Black household income was about $37,800, compared to $63,600 for the median white household. In terms of median net worth, white households are about thirteen times as wealthy as Black households—a gap that has grown wider since the Great Recession.7
Though these data leave me wondering why so many White people are worried about discrimination against them, I am reminded of the tendency that Americans of all backgrounds have to overestimate how many people of color there are in the United States. Though demographics are changing, they are not changing as fast as the average person thinks they are. In 2013, the Center for American Progress (CAP), an independent, nonpartisan policy institute, joined with other nonprofit organizations (Policy Link, Latino Decisions, and the Rockefeller Foundation) to “assess how Americans view issues of rising diversity and policy proposals to better integrate these communities into the mainstream of American society and its economy.” The resulting study is one of the largest of its kind, based on nearly three thousand interviews with a very diverse group of Americans. Researchers found that “when asked to estimate the current percentage of the U.S. population that is composed of racial and ethnic minorities, Americans are considerably off the mark. The median response—49 percent—indicates that the typical American thinks we are nearly a majority-minority nation already; the actual percent of the nation that is a minority is about 37 percent.” Respondents were wrong about the future as well, estimating that the population of color in 2050 will be 62 percent, considerably more than the Census Bureau projection of 53 percent.8
Though the researchers concluded that there was general openness about the increasing diversity, particularly among younger and college-educated respondents, they also found that one of the greatest concerns respondents had about rising diversity was job availability. Fifty-four percent agreed with the survey statement, “There will not be enough jobs for everybody.” Consistent with the 2015 American Values Survey, a significant percentage (42 percent) expressed fear that discrimination against Whites will increase as the diversity of the population increases. This anxiety was particularly prevalent among White conservatives (61 percent) and White respondents ages sixty-five or older (56 percent).9
The concern expressed by White respondents about discrimination being directed against them also reminded me that our tendency as human beings is to focus on the “micro” rather than the “macro” when it comes to our own lives. Even if only 3 percent of executives nationwide are Black, if you are White and one of them happens to get the job you thought was yours, you may feel your worry about discrimination against White people has been validated. Such an explanation might ease the pain of your disappointment, even as it might fuel your racial resentment.
Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild offers further insight into the mind-set of White working-class Americans, who were the most likely (60 percent) to say that discrimination against Whites has become as much of a concern as discrimination against people of color. In her book Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, she describes White working-class men and women who feel as if they have been waiting in line for the promise of the American Dream of intergenerational progress to be fulfilled for a long time. Instead of moving forward, they feel as if they are moving backward, with stagnant wages, the loss of jobs in manufacturing and other areas, and the growing threat of globalization. And yet, they see others getting ahead. It feels like something has gone painfully wrong in the world. Hochschild calls this the “deep story,” and it sounds like this:
Look! You see people cutting in line ahead of you! You’re following the rules. They aren’t.… How can they just do that? Who are they? Some are black. Through affirmative action plans, pushed by the federal government, they are being given preference for places in colleges and universities, apprenticeships, jobs, welfare payments, and free lunches.… And President Obama: how did he rise so high? The biracial son of a low-income single mother becomes president of the most powerful country in the world; you didn’t see that coming. And if he’s there, what kind of a slouch does his rise make you feel like, you who are supposed to be so much more privileged? Or did Obama get there fairly? How did he get into an expensive place like Columbia University? How did Michelle Obama get enough money to go to Princeton? And then Harvard Law School, with a father who was a city water plant employee? You’ve never seen anything like it, not up close.10
In this narrative, it is not just Black people who are cutting in line, it is other groups too—like women, immigrants, and refugees—and it is the line-cutter-in-chief who has be
en helping them. Psychologically speaking, the deeply internalized racial hierarchy that has White men at the head of the line has been set askew, and that by itself is unsettling for some. This “deep story” helps explain why, despite the actual data about opportunity in America, the perception of discrimination against Whites is so widely expressed in the survey responses.
What is clear is that, whether the result of collective anxiety driven by demographic overestimates, individualized and specific job concerns, or the election of a Black president, in the context of the survey results, the debate about affirmative action is destined to continue for some time. For a moment, let’s step back from these survey results and take a brief overview of affirmative action.
What Is Affirmative Action?
The term affirmative action was introduced into our language and legal system by Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 and later amended by Presidents Nixon and Clinton. This order, as amended by subsequent presidents, obligates all contractors who employ more than fifty people and who conduct more than $50,000 of business with the federal government to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” As set forth by this order, contractors were to commit themselves to “apply every good faith effort” to develop procedures that would result in equal employment opportunity for historically disadvantaged groups. The groups targeted for this “affirmative action” were White women and men and women of color (specifically defined by the federal government as American Indians / Alaska Natives, Asian or Pacific Islanders, Blacks, and Hispanics). Later legislation broadened the protected groups to include persons with disabilities and veterans.11
There has been much public debate about affirmative action since its inception, with little attempt to clarify concepts. The interchangeable use of the terms affirmative action and quotas by politicians and in the media has contributed to the confusion. The term quota has a repugnant history of discrimination and exclusion. For example, in the early part of the twentieth century, quotas were used to limit how many Jews were admitted to prestigious institutions of higher learning.12 But despite common public perceptions, affirmative action programs do not involve quotas.
Quotas, defined here as fixed numerical allocations, are illegal, except in those rare situations when a court has ordered them as a temporary remedy for a well-documented, proven pattern of racially motivated discrimination.
Public-sector employers may use quotas or preferences when a sufficiently compelling government interest has been established—that is, to remedy discrimination by the government entity itself. Even in these cases, preferences are acceptable only if no reasonable demographically neutral alternative exists. And the preferences must be flexible, focused, limited in duration, and not overly burdensome to nonbeneficiaries. Federal government regulations explicitly prohibit private employers from utilizing quotas or preferences.13
Goals, on the other hand, are essential. Goals are not a fixed allocation meant to limit (as quotas did in the past). Instead, goals provide a necessary target for which to aim. As any long-range planner knows, goals are necessary in order to chart one’s course of action and to evaluate one’s progress. Goals are a fundamental component of effective affirmative action programs.
In practice, federal contractors are expected to monitor their own records to make sure they are employing qualified people from specified targeted classes—such as women or African Americans—in proportion to their availability in the workforce. If they find that there is a significant pattern of underrepresentation, they are expected to make a plan to address the discrepancy. Organizations that don’t have federal contracts are not required to have affirmative action programs, but over the years many companies have adopted them voluntarily.14
Though much of what we have seen in the news about affirmative action is in reference to Supreme Court cases focused on admissions at public universities, in fact, most of the laws related to affirmative action are in reference to employment. Social psychologist and expert on affirmative action Faye Crosby points out that “affirmative action in employment affects many more citizens than does affirmative action in education.… Educators estimate that no more than half of the four-year institutions are selective. The rest admit everyone who applies. Thus, issues concerning college admissions relate, at most, to about 6 million Americans. In contrast, about six times as many people are affected by affirmative action programs in employment.”15 Employment-based affirmative action will be the focus of our discussion here.
Though Executive Order 11246 required affirmative action, it did not specify exactly what the action should look like. Given this lack of specificity, it is not surprising that there is great variety in the way affirmative action programs have been developed and implemented around the country.16 The emphasis on action is apparent in this widely accepted nontechnical definition: “Affirmative action is the expenditure of energy or resources by an organization in the quest for equality among individuals from different, discernible groups.”17 These attempts can be categorized as either process-oriented or goal-oriented.
Process-oriented programs focus on creating a fair application process, assuming that a fair process will result in a fair outcome. If a job opening has been advertised widely, and anyone who is interested has a chance to apply, and all applicants receive similar treatment (e.g., standard interview questions, same evaluation criteria and procedures), the process is presumed to be fair. The search committee can freely choose the best candidate knowing that no discrimination has taken place. Under such circumstances, the “best” candidate will sometimes be a person of color, “too good to ignore.”18 In theory, such would seem to be the case, and because process-oriented programs seem consistent with the American ideal of the meritocracy, most people support this approach.19 At the very least, it is an improvement over the “old boy network” that filled positions before outsiders even had a chance to apply.
Unfortunately, research suggests that bias can enter into the selection process at the very start of the search process. For example, economists Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan conducted a study on hiring behavior in which they sent out close to 5,000 fictitious résumés in response to over 1,300 help-wanted ads in Chicago and Boston newspapers, for jobs in the sales, administrative support, clerical, and customer service categories. The résumés were similar except that half of them were assigned an African American–sounding name (Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones, for example) and the other half had names more commonly associated with Whites (such as Emily Walsh or Greg Baker). Then they waited to see what the callback response would be. The results showed significant discrimination against the Black-identified résumés: White names received 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. The degree of discrimination was similar across job categories. Even federal contractors and employers with “Equal Opportunity Employer” listed in their ads showed the same level of discrimination as other employers. The authors concluded, “A White applicant should expect on average one callback for every 10 ads she or he applies to; on the other hand, an African American applicant would need to apply to about 15 different ads to achieve the same result.”20
In another study of hiring behavior, conducted in Milwaukee, sociologist Devah Pager sent paired testers to apply in person for jobs that required no experience, just a high school degree. White applicants were twice as likely to be called back for an interview as the matched Black applicants. Surprisingly, even White applicants who indicated that they had a criminal record received more callbacks (17 percent) than Black applicants without a criminal record (14 percent).21
In a subsequent study, this time in New York City, Pager and her colleagues fielded teams of White, Black, and Latinx testers to apply for real entry-level jobs. The testers were articulate, clean-cut, college-educated young men between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-
six, similar in height, physical attractiveness, verbal skill, and interactional style and demeanor. The Latinx testers were US citizens of Puerto Rican descent and spoke without a Spanish accent. The testers were trained to present themselves in similar ways to potential employers as high school graduates with steady work experience in entry-level jobs. They applied for jobs in restaurants and retail sales, as warehouse workers, couriers, telemarketers, stockers, movers, customer service representatives, and other similar jobs available to someone with a high school degree and little previous experience. In applications to 171 employers, the White testers received a positive response (interview or job offer) 31 percent of the time, the Latinx testers received a positive response 25.2 percent of the time, and the Black testers, 15.2 percent of the time. Stated differently, the Black applicant had to search twice as long as the equally qualified White applicant before receiving a callback or a job offer.22
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Page 24
