Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 30, 1995 TAG: 9507280078
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Polls show most Americans - including some women and members of ethnic minorities heretofore favoring them - now oppose affirmative-action programs.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturns some federal set-asides for minority-owned contractors, a lower court's school-integration plan in Kansas City and the practice of drawing congressional districts with race as the principal factor.
The University of California regents, following Gov. Pete Wilson's urgings, vote to end the gender- and ethnic-based reservation of some admissions slots for groups that otherwise would be underrepresented in proportion to their percentage of the population.
Has America's second Reconstruction come to an end? In the latter decades of the 20th century, has the post-World War II fight for racial (and gender) justice petered out, just as the post-Civil War effort for racial (though not gender) justice petered out in the latter decades of the 19th?
Before issuing a death certificate, a couple of points are worth bearing in mind:
"Affirmative action" is an elastic phrase, with public attitudes toward it properly varying with the particulars.
The issue is not so much whether people should be treated as groups or as individuals, as it is which kinds of groups are constitutionally valid and legislatively wise, and which kinds are not.
Affirmative action can mean "hard" programs like the federal set-asides, overturned by the high court, under which a minority-owned (sometimes in name only) firm could win a contract without offering the lowest price in competitive bidding. These programs, polls show, are widely disliked.
But it can also mean "soft" programs, like a private-sector employer's efforts to expand its talent pool beyond traditional good-old-boy networks. When described in terms of widening opportunities, polls also show, affirmative action rightly wins public approval.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has continued to allow, at least hypothetically, the hardest of affirmative-action efforts as remedies directly linked to specific instances of discrimination. This is appropriate, too.
At the same time, new forms of affirmative action may be on the way - based not on improving opportunities for racial minorities as such, but rather on improving opportunities for the economically disadvantaged.
In his recent address on affirmative action, for example, President Clinton spoke of set-asides based not on race or gender but on whether the firm were located in an economically depressed area - a proposal resembling the enterprise-zone concept identified with Republicans like Jack Kemp. The California regents are supplanting the race- and gender-oriented admissions program with one to promote economically and socially diverse student bodies - a good idea.
Affirmative action based on socioeconomic disadvantage presumably would pass constitutional muster more easily because that sort of grouping is not subject to the "strict scrutiny," in the jargon of constitutional law, that racial distinctions are.
Economic-based affirmative action also has the virtue of flexibility. One source of discontent now is that, because ethnic background and gender don't change with life's fortunes, affirmative action in its current form can provide preferences to people who in fact enjoy ample opportunities for success.
Economics-based programs pose difficulties of their own; moving to broaden opportunity inevitably is messy. But allowing inequality of opportunity to persist and grow and rigidify in America would produce far messier situations. To work, economic-based affirmative action must reflect honest effort, and not simply serve as an excuse to perpetuate racial and gender privilege. We have a long, long way still to go to make America a land of equal opportunity.
by CNB