Letters to the Editor
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‘Affirmative Action’
Re: “Ending Affirmative Action,” David Gelernter, Opinion, July 26, 2005. It was a liberal Supreme Court and President Carter who created affirmative action cum quotas. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, President Johnson’s great accomplishment, actually contains specific language prohibiting the government from forcing firms to hire by the numbers absent any evidence of specific discriminatory acts. However, in EEOC vs. Shell Oil (466. U.S. 54, 1984) the court (5-4) somehow decided that the Act did allow the government to move against a firm just on the basis of numbers. Other cases slowly moved employment discrimination law and enforcement in this direction.
It is true that under President Nixon, Laurence H. Silberman, then the deputy secretary of labor, imposed goals and timetables of percentages of qualified blacks on federal contractors, but in the construction industry only. After Mr. Carter was elected, Mr. Silberman publicly stated he had made a mistake. He could already see that forcing goals for “qualified blacks” quickly deteriorated into quotas without much attention to qualifications. After all, who wants to risk losing his government contract? It was Mr. Carter who directed the contract compliance office to extend the policy beyond construction to federal contractors in all industries.
Mr. Gelernter stresses the unfairness of affirmative action as the main reason for ending it. And surely it is true that some whites have been hurt by a system that accepts a black with lesser qualifications. But after a career of studying the economic effects of racial discrimination, I do not consider “unfairness effects” have been widespread or significant. They gain public attention because of dramatic court cases but blacks are simply not a large enough percentage of the population to make them very widespread over the entire labor market.
The important reason for getting rid of affirmative action is that it is very demeaning to young blacks. How would anyone like to be told, in a highly publicized way, that he needs special treatment in order to qualify simply because of the color of his skin? Would the poor Jewish immigrants at the turn of the century have been helped if they had been told they were going to take easier exams to get into college?
Mr. Gelernter’s assertion that affirmative action has created an “aristocracy” is both galling and nonsensical. It has created a legion of frustrated young blacks who have to worry about proving to the world that they can become capable doctors, lawyers, etc., without any special treatment.
DAVID M. O’NEILL
Senior Economist, Center for Business and Government
Baruch College
City University of New York
Manhattan
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