5 Surprising Facts About Affirmative Action

Affirmative action policies can be traced back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Title VI of the Act also outlawed discrimination in any federally assisted program or activity, including educational institutions.

After nearly 50 years of affirmative action, American society is more diverse than ever, both in the office and on campus.

Because of this, some claim we no longer need affirmative action, saying that it is really reverse discrimination in disguise by unfairly privileging one group of people over another. However,  many still believe that affirmative action is still necessary, and cite the high incidence of employment and education discrimination complaints as evidence.

Arguments on both sides of the issue can get emotional, so take a look at some facts and draw your own conclusion. Do you think the time for affirmative action has passed? Or do some racial and ethnic groups still need a boost, even in the 21st century?

1. Salary Disparity Still Exists

Women consistently earn less than men, and minorities earn less than whites, even in the same professions and with the same academic backgrounds.

While earnings for women with college degrees have increased by 33 percent since 1979, in 2009, women with bachelor’s degrees made approximately 73 percent of what men with four-year degrees earned.

The median income in white households in 2009 was about $52,000; Latino and Hispanic households saw a median income of $38,000; and in black households, $32,500.

2. Discrimination and Harassment Continue

Over 90,000 employment discrimination complaints were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2009.

In 2010, 29,029 individual sex discrimination complaints were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This number includes over 11,717 sexual harassment claims.

3. Without Affirmative Action, Some Schools Resegregate

• In 1996, the first-year class at the University of California-Berkeley law school included over 10 percent black or African-American students. In 1997, California’s ban on affirmative action went into effect. By 2000, the school’s first year class  contained only 1.4 percent black students.
• That same year, the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine did not admit a single one of their 196 black applicants.
•  The University of California-Berkeley admitted 52 percent fewer minorities in 1998 than the previous year. 800 minority applicants with grade point averages of 4.0 and SAT scores of at least 1200 were denied admission that year.
• After the Hopwood decision overturned affirmative action at the University of Texas, the number of black students at the UT Law School dropped from 65 in 1996 to 11 in 1997.  Four black students enrolled, in a first-year class of 400.
• The number of women faculty has decreased by nearly one-quarter throughout the University of California system since the end of affirmative action in California.

4. Diversity In Employment and Education Increased After Affirmative Action

• In 1890, fewer than one in 200 lawyers in the U.S. were black. By 1970, that percentage had only increased to 1.29 percent, or just over one in one hundred. By 1985, just fifteen years later, five percent of all law students in the U.S. were black; since 1986 the proportion of ethnic minorities enrolled in law school has doubled.
• In 1971, women received just over six percent of all professional degrees. Just ten years later, that number had quadrupled to 27.5 percent. In 2010, women earned over one-third of all MBA’s awarded in the U.S.
• In 2010, women made up 46 percent of the labor force, and 51.5 percent of management and professional positions.

5. It’s Illegal to Hire Less Qualified Candidates to Fill a “Quota.”
One frequent argument against affirmative action policies is the passing over of supposedly “more qualified” candidates to fill a slot with a woman or minority employee instead.

However, just as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act made it illegal to discriminate based on race or gender, it also made it illegal to base any hiring decision, in whole or in part, on someone’s race or gender.

Employers can’t hire the white guy over the black guy just because he’s white, but they also can’t hire a less-qualified person if there are more-qualified applicants, regardless of their ethnicity, just because they want a token minority on staff.