Equal Opportunity Employer example essay topic

Affirmative Action The first and central goal of affirmative action according to Justice Be nnan's opening line in the Bakke decision was to achieve equal opportunity for all. But over time as affirmative action programs evolved from the race-blind class-based structure to class-blind racial preferences, the goal shifted from equality of individual opportunity to equality of racial group results. (Kahlenberg pp. 42). Affirmative actions is more than nondiscrimination. Whereas nondiscrimination requires that all discrimatory conditions whether purposeful or inadvertent, be eliminated. Affirmative action requires the employer to make positive efforts to recruit, employ train and promote qualified minority members when it is clear that they have been excluded from jobs in the past.

Even though an employer may, according to its written policies, be an equal opportunity employer it cannot remain neutral. It must take affirmative actions when the employment roster shows that the results of actual hiring, promotion and job assignment do not reflect the intent of its written policies. Failure to live up to affirmative actions programs can result in the loss of government contracts. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces the provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act was the basic provision calling for nondiscrimination in all types of employment. Many companies have found a self-analysis of their personnel and EEO policies to be very effective.

The analysis permits companies to take the necessary corrective actions if practices and procedure are not in compliance with federal regulations. Although EEO regulations do not require an employer to hire people who are not qualified, they do specify that minorities, females and other members of protected groups must be afforded that same equality of opportunity that has been offered to other candidates in the past. Since the 1960's government and corporate policies that set goals for hiring women and minorities have been sharply criticized. Their opponents maintain that many policies establish indefensible quotas and discriminate against sometimes more qualified white males.

In 1991, President George Bush referred to the word quota as the dreaded q-word. Quotas he said had finally been eliminated from government policies. Such opposition is understandable. No worker wants to lose a job to a less qualified person, and no employer wants to be restricted in its hiring and promotion by a quota.

A quota does not mean that fixed numbers of employers should be hired regardless of an individual's qualification for a position. Quotas are simply targeted employment percentages. In some cases a less qualified person may be hired or promoted, but it has never been a part of affirmative action to hire below the threshold of basically qualified (Beckwith pp. 217). Discrimination affecting hiring and promotion is not present everywhere in our society, but it is pervasive.

An impressive body of statistics constituting what I call In your face evidence of discrimination has been assembled in recent years. It indicates that (1) women with identical credentials are promoted at approximately one-half the rate of their male counterparts; (2) 69% or more of the white-collar positions in the United States are held by women but women hold only approximately 10% of the management positions; (3) 87% of all professionals in the private business sector are of oriental org in, but they constitute only 1.3% of the management positions; (4) in the total U.S. population 3 out 7 employees hold white-collar positions, wheals the ration is only 1 of 7 for blacks; (5) black occupy over 50% of the nations jobs as garbage collectors and maids, but only 4% of the nations management positions. These are statistics that make you say h ? Such statistics are not decisive indicators of discrimination, but additional facts also support the conclusion that racist and sexist biases powerfully influence the marketplace. Laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act were seen as making sue that our ideals of freedom and justice were extended to every American.

But in a memorable passage President Lyndon Johnson argues that it is not enough just to guarantee equal basic freedoms: you do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders as you please. You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, You are free to compete with all the others, and still believe you have been completely fair. Johnson believed that to guarantee everyone the right to full participation in the American dream, we must implement policies that give previously disadvantaged black people preferential treatment in education and employment. The Civil Rights Acts however were not enough to un write a four hundred-year history of racism and patriarchy. There are too many reasons why anti discrimination laws are notoriously difficult to enforce. Race and gender views are deeply rooted in places the law is too slow to reach.

Their needs to be a continual process of education in grade schools as well as colleges about the oppression of minorities in America. Only then will people fully understand the importance of Affirmative action in today society. The only way to make equality real is to attack and dismantle inequality. (Malcolm.