Issues Tearing Our Nation's Fabric The Center for Reclaiming America

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Affirmative Action
Chapter Two

When, in 1961, President of John F. Kennedy first used the term "affirmative action" to authorize preferential hiring of minorities under Executive Order No. 10925, he and his advisors could hardly have imagined how far-reaching and divisive their edict would become. Surely they never considered how acrimonious the debate over "quotas" and "racial set-asides" would be. But since that first step was taken, affirmative action initiatives in this country have turned the whole concept of "equality under the law" upside down.

The reasoning behind Kennedy’s order may have been revolutionary, but the design was quite simple. The directive specified that federal contractors should take positive steps—affirmative action—to insure that all Americans would have equal access to jobs and appointments "without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin." Though such issues had been addressed by the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, this was the first time the government set out to change and monitor hiring practices based on race. But that affirmative-action order initiated a legacy of discord that continues to this hour.

Today, nearly forty years later, affirmative action is being used not only in the awarding of government contracts, but in the hiring of teachers in schools and universities, in the admission of students to public and private institutions, and for advancement and promotion in many corporations and public agencies. The very program implemented to halt discrimination on the basis of race is now commonly used to bar Asians, whites, and anyone of European origin from advancement. Admission of college freshmen and first-year graduate students is consistently weighted heavily in favor of minorities over whites.

Predictably, this has become one of the most provocative social issues of our day. The idea of racial quotas runs counter to principles of democracy; and the systematic intrusion of the federal bureaucracy into the hiring practices of private businesses raises serious questions about the role of government and the rights of a free people. Passage of Proposition 209 by the voters of the State of California in November 1996, however, may be the first wave of a nationwide backlash.

Evolution of a Debate

The origins of the affirmative-action debate can be traced, in large measure, to the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which was decided by the United States Supreme Court on May 17, 1954. This decision overturned previous rulings, which guaranteed "separate but equal" facilities for blacks on the grounds that a more equitable interpretation of the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was needed.

In 1896 the Supreme Court had held in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation was permissible so long as equal facilities were provided for both races. Subsequent decisions addressed other aspects of the problem; but in the Court’s ruling on the case of Linda Brown, a black child who had been denied admission to an all-white school, Chief Justice Earl Warren presented the majority opinion, saying that "separate education facilities are inherently unequal."

Segregating children solely on the basis of race, he said, "generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone." Interpretations and extenuations of that ruling led, in turn, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to Executive Order No. 11246 issued by President Lyndon B. Johnson, which set up the Office of Federal Contract Compliance in the Labor Department to mandate what amounted to racial quotas in hiring by government contractors.

Later, under President Richard Nixon, these policies were given fuller definition. Administrative directives specified that "goals and timetables" should be established to insure compliance with the growing list of orders and mandates requiring preferential hiring. In the mid-1970s, President Gerald R. Ford ordered that these policies also be applied to military veterans and individuals with physical and mental disabilities.

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, passed under the administration of President George Bush, added additional categories of citizens for special consideration; and since 1992 the Clinton Administration has vigorously applied the same affirmative-action criteria in ordering preferential hiring of "women and minorities."

Critical Concerns

When Martin Luther King, Jr. challenged racism in America in the 1960s, he decided to do something about it. He began by organizing voter-registration drives throughout the South. He orchestrated demonstrations and rallies in his hometown of Albany, Georgia, in 1962 and in Birmingham, Alabama, and Danville, Virginia, in 1963.

He also organized the historic "March on Washington" in August 1963, where he spoke the words: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character." Ironically, recent social policies in America suggest that "character doesn’t count," and the main consideration, whether in hiring or in university admissions is, in fact, the color of a person’s skin.

As more and more Americans are discovering that "reverse discrimination is still discrimination," the struggle to reverse two generations of faulty social policies has begun to heat up. Thanks to civil litigation involving their largest state universities, by 1996 the states of California and Texas were required to announce that race would no longer be "the determining factor" in establishing freshman and graduate-student entrance requirements.

Advocates of racial preferences have repeatedly attacked reform efforts such as California’s Proposition 209 for being racist. However, the active language in the bill passed by voters states simply that,

The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group, on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

This is almost precisely the language used in the Civil Rights Acts of 1964; nevertheless, framers of the bill, including Ward Connerly, a black businessman who supported the issue, were labeled racists and bigots by detractors.

Hubert Humphrey, a self-described sixties liberal, defined discrimination as "any distinction in treatment given to different individuals because of their different race." Today’s preference programs have gone far beyond that view and, as reformers have suggested, now threaten to turn Dr. King’s dream into a nightmare and his vision of a color-blind society into a dangerously polarized illusion.

Opportunity vs. Results

The fundamental flaw of most federal, state, and local policies regarding such matters has been the attempt to enforce not just equal opportunity, but equality of results, as well—a concept that is contrary to both logic and human nature. Ultimately, the attempt to force results has had the most damaging effect on the people such programs were designed to help. At the University of California, for example, only 40 percent of entering freshmen are selected on the basis of merit. But in studies of student performance correlated by race at UC-Berkeley, just 27 percent of black students actually complete their degrees, compared to 66 percent of whites. And at the prestige universities that are most likely to grant preferential admission to minority students, the dropout rates of non-whites are highest of all.

These things alone should concern us all. Christians who believe in the founding principles of this nation, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," should understand the innate worth and dignity of all people of all races. Policies that divide us, or that subject certain groups to failure and scorn, are not conducive to life, liberty, or happiness.

In Peter’s great sermon recorded in the book of Acts, he said, "God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him" (Acts 10:34–35). In many other places, the Bible assures us that in the eyes of God, we are all equal. Paul wrote, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).

We know that whoever comes to the foot of the Cross is an adopted child of the heavenly Father and an heir to the promise of eternal life. In this life, we are to live as brothers and as equals. Unnatural social programs based on behaviorist theories of racial remediation and enforced equality are contrary to the hopes and beliefs of citizens in a free, democratic society. But it doesn’t end there.

Positive Engagement

From the Christian’s perspective, it is the risk of severing this bond of brotherhood that makes racial preferences and the division they foster so intolerable. While it may be possible to set forth all sorts of economic or ethical reasons why affirmative action is wrong, or even to demonstrate how reverse discrimination has failed to solve the social problems it was meant to address, the central issue cannot be merely financial or social. Equality and opportunity, ultimately, are moral concerns. In the years ahead, the Church can help show the way.

Jesus said,

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34–35).

If we say activities such as hiring and college entrance need to be based on individual qualifications, and not merely on race or minority status, we should also see that Christians must never allow themselves to be divided by race, color, or other cultural differences.

Paul wrote to the Galatians,

For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another (Galatians 6:3–4).

Such a perspective should tell us we are each responsible for our own behavior; but we also know we must work to build communities that guarantee justice and equal treatment for all citizens, regardless of race, creed, or national origin. Cooperation, not coercion, is the answer.

You may contact these organizations:

Empower America
1776 I Street, NW, Suite 890
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 452-8200

The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Ave., NE
Washington, DC 20002-4999
(202) 546-44 00

Headway Magazine
13555 Bammel N. Houston,
Suite 227
Houston, TX 77066
(713) 444-4265

The Center for Individual Rights
1233 20th St., Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036
(202) 833-8400

For further reading:

Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton, Jr. The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1995.
Terry Eastland. Ending Affirmative Action. New York: Basic Books, 1996.
Dinesh D’Souza. The End of Racism. New York: Free Press, 1995.
Dinesh D’Souza. Illiberal Education. New York: Vintage/Random House, 1992.

On the World Wide Web:

Empower America: http://www.townhall.com/empower

Center for Individual Rights: http://www.townhall.com/cir

Headway Magazine: http://www.headwaymag.com/

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Copyright 1997, Coral Ridge Ministries. All rights reserved.