In the 1960s and 1970s, the federal government passed Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) legislation to prohibit discrimination in hiring and promotion, thus protecting many individuals deemed to be of minority status. As with so many well-intentioned policies, EEO legislation could not affect change without a strong plan of implementation and policy review. So was born Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action is best understood as a recruitment tool designed to increase opportunities for qualified individuals of minority status to apply for jobs. The basis of Affirmative Action is to implement goals and guidelines that actively promote the aims of EEO legislation.

Under EEO and Affirmative Action regulations, establishing quotas or giving preferential treatment in hiring or promotion is explicitly illegal.

There are four basic types of Affirmative Action:

• Federal Contractors. Instituted by President Nixon, the law requires all firms with more than $50,000 in federal contracts and at least 50 employees to produce a written Affirmative Action plan. For an agency or business to successfully bid for federal contracts, they must produce a set of goals and written steps to promote fair hiring and promotion practices. The agencies and businesses are not evaluated on the number or percentage of minorities they employ but instead the effort they put forth.
• Government Agencies. Governmental agencies are required at the federal level to implement goals and steps to encourage employment opportunities. Some of these goals are recruitment methods that reach the entire pool of qualified candidates; developing and fully utilizing an employee's skills; training lower level employees to enhance promotion opportunities; and identifying target positions for which lower level employees may be eligible.
• Court Ordered. When a private business has been found guilty of discriminatory practices in employment, the court can order the adoption of an Affirmative Action program. In cases of gross discriminatory practices, the court can choose to institute quotas as part of their affirmative action plan. This type of situation is strictly the only instance where quotas are allowed under federal law.
• Voluntary Implementation. Employers may voluntarily implement affirmative action programs because they deem them to be ethical, cost effective, and good business practice. While voluntary, employers must adhere to EEOC guidelines so as to prevent any type of reverse discrimination.

Affirmative Action is a necessary tool in holding employers accountable to Equal Employment Opportunity legislation. Supported by the majority of the workforce, when Affirmative Action is appropriately defined as an employer's "genuine effort to broaden the applicant pools to include more qualified women and minorities," approximately 70% of white persons endorsed it.

Discrimination still exists in the workplace

• White women and black men make approximately 74% of what white men make. Black women make 63%, Hispanic men make 62%, and Hispanic women make 57% that of their white male counter parts.
• Since 1965, women and minorities have filed over 1.5 million discrimination complaints.

Affirmative action prevents employment discrimination

• As a result of Xerox Corporation's voluntary adoption of an affirmative action program between 1964 and 1996, minority share of jobs rose from 3% to 27%.
• After adopting an affirmative action, Merk and Co. increased its female representation among employees and managers by 5%.
• National affirmative action programs in law enforcement have increased tenfold the number of female and minority police officers.

Affirmative action has no adverse effect on productivity and workers hired under affirmative action programs are as qualified as other candidates

• A study of Chicago's 100 largest firms that spanned 13 years found no statistical relationship between their profit margin and their amount of women and minority employees.
• A study involving many regions of the United States found that performance evaluations of women and minorities hired under affirmative action did not differ from the evaluations of persons hired outside of affirmative action plans.

Affirmative action is worth every penny

• The estimated cost of enforcement and compliance of affirmative action in the United States is 1.9 billion dollars. In comparison, the projected inefficient use of African American's productive capacity is set at $138 billion.
• In 1973, women earned on average 56 cents for every dollar that men earned. Today, in part due to the effects of equal opportunity legislation, women earn on average 74 cents to a man's dollar.

Sources:

Elliot, James. 1999. "Social Isolation and Labor Market Insulation: Network and Neighborhood Effects on Less Educated Urban Workers." The Sociological Quarterly 40:199-216.

Mitra, Aparna. 1999. "The Allocation of Blacks in Large Firms and Establishment and Black-White Wage Inequality in the US Economy." Sociological Inquiry 69:382-403.

Moreno, Paul. !997. From Direct Action to Affirmative Action. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press.

Reskin, Barbara. 1998. The Realities of Affirmative Action In Employment. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association.

Rosenfeld, Michel. 1991. Affirmative Action and Justice. Binghamton, NY: Vail-Ballou Press.