In the preceding post I discussed the NAACP’s plans to initiate litigation “against every college that refuses to abide by the existing affirmative action laws.”
But what is “affirmative action”? Although this will not be news to those of you who have followed this issue closely, it bears repeating (and I’m repeating from a post from a year ago) that the phase, as first used in executive orders by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, initially meant close to the opposite of what it has come to mean.
The phrase was first used in the context of race in President Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925, signed March 6, 1961. Its first two “Whereas” clauses were:
WHEREAS discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin is contrary to the Constitutional principles and policies of the United States; and 13 CFR 1960 Supp.
WHEREAS it is the plain and positive obligation of the United States Government to promote and ensure equal opportunity for all qualified persons, without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin, employed or seeking employment with the Federal Government and on government contracts…
And it then specified:
The contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. (Emphasis added)
Executive Order 11246, signed by President Johnson on September 28, 1965, was almost identical. Under “Contractors’ Agreements,” it specified:
(1) The contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.(Emphasis added)
As initially promulgated, then, the whole thrust of “affirmative action” was precisely to eliminate any and all racial preference and to ensure non-discrimination. Most agree today — some happily, others sadly — that that definition has been relegated to the dustbin of history, that in practice “affirmative action” has come to mean naked racial preference.
But maybe we have been too quick about this. Even in the civil rights movement there is a residual reluctance, infrequently but occasionally expressed, to abandon altogether the old civil rights commitment to the principle of non-discrimination. Note, for example, Julian Bond’s statement in his address to the NAACP convention in Atlanta in August 1998:
“Affirmative action really isn’t about preferential treatment for Blacks,” Bond said. “It is about removing preferential treatment Whites have received through history.”
I would be happy to endorse new legislation and a new executive order implementing affirmative action policies based on Bond’s definition.
Would he and the NAACP join me?
John, in concurrence with the “history” you’ve provided, I add only this self-explanator clip from the 1964 Civil Rights Act, signed by LBJ with a majority of Republicans (required to overcome his own Democratic Party’s objections in the house and senate).
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Civil Rights Act, Section 401 (b) “Desegregation” means the assignment of students to public schools and within such schools without regard to their race, color, religion, or national origin, but “desegregation” shall not mean the assignment of students to public schools in order to overcome racial imbalance.