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[QUOTE]Originally posted by JeffKardde: [QB] Affirmative action is under attack. The backlash against meaningful efforts to achieve full citizenship for all Americans that first arose in the early 1970s has been fueled anew by a combustible mix of changing demographics, political exploitation of racial tensions and economic instability. Early contenders in next year's Presidential race have been strident in their criticisms of affirmative action. Voters in California will probably confront a ballot initiative in 1996 to repeal all affirmative action laws in that state. And even the United States Supreme Court, formerly the principal architect of this legal remedy for discrimination, has issued decisions in recent years that diminish its role in correcting the pervasive underrepresentation of women and people of color in many spheres of education and the world of work. Nevertheless, opinion surveys show that most Americans still support the goal of equal opportunity in employment and education. A recent Gallup poll showed that 73 percent of Americans approve of companies making conscientious efforts to identify and recruit qualified women and people of color. Clearly, then, during the years that we have lived with affirmative action, we have learned its lessons. Most Americans now understand that discrimination is wrong. All people deserve equal access to the means of fulfilling their potential, and equal opportunity to be judged solely on their abilities and on "the content of their character." Affirmative action is not a "quota" system, not "preferential treatment," not a club for bludgeoning employers and educational institutions into accepting unqualified workers and students. It's a strategy for curing what ails our society's institutions, which are still plagued with discriminatory attitudes and practices that exclude millions of qualified and deserving people from the American mainstream. Affirmative action is an instrument of inclusion, a means of bringing all Americans into society's mainstream as equal competitors in the race of life. Affirmative action is still needed. Although women and people of color have come a long way in the decades since the Civil Rights Act was passed, discrimination persists. In 1991, President Bush and Congress appointed a 21-member Federal Glass Ceiling Commission to identify barriers that block the advancement of women and people of color into decision making positions. In March, the commission reported back: "Today's American labor force is gender and race segregated -- white men fill most top management positions in corporations." Affirmative action does not penalize white males. Fairness requires ending biased practices, not perpetuating them, and that includes ending the unjust advantages traditionally enjoyed by whites and white men. The conscientious effort to hire or admit women and people of color is a way for employers and schools to break their habit of favoring whites and males, and a way to facilitate the transition to nondiscriminatory practices. Restructuring a discriminatory status quo to create a nondiscriminatory environment isn't "reverse discrimination," but it may feel that way because something is being lost: White people are losing the favoritism they so long enjoyed in a system that discriminated on the basis of color and sex. --The ACLU A few years old. But I think it makes a good point. Awww, we're poor white males. Awww, we don't get everything as easily as we used to. Let's scream about racism and throw a fit. ::sigh:: [/QB][/QUOTE]
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