UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
focus
affirmative action
October 5, 1979
Equality efforts falter
The new acting director of affirmative action at the University of Kansas says that although he thinks the University has made efforts in promoting the employment of minorities, handicapped people and women, there is always room for improvement.
Michael Edwards, who was named acting director until June of next year when director Bonnie Ritter returns to work, couldn't help, couldn't hurt the trump barder.
The fact of the matter is that while KU, along with a large number of other universities, has made strides in recognizing the need and responsibility to encourage minority recruitment, it still has a long way to go.
WHEN the University first adopted an affirmative action program in the spring of 1972, it said it was committed to more than just the elimination of discrimination against members of unmarried groups in University activity.
KU said it also was committed to the development and implementation of policies and programs designed to
promote the full participation of members of such groups in the functions of the University at all levels.
The ideals of equal opportunity were easy to espose; the commitment and execution of those ideals at KU have been much harder.
ADMISSIONS OF an inability to carry out the promises of those ideals have come from all parts of the University community. The recruitment of blacks and other minorities for the position off positions has been difficult at best.
Although the University has staunchly supported affirmative action programs, it has fallen short of producing a program that is effective.
Edwards, along with others, has seen the discrepancy between the ideal and the actual.
Espousing ideals never accomplish what a commitment to ideals does, and that commitment has not been as strong as it should—and could—be. Perhaps it has even been missing.
Indeed, a return to the commitment to progress promised in 1972 is needed now.
The newspaper business is a white man's business and there is no disquieting. And if it isn't important, it is not representative and unenlightened, it is. Something is being done to remedy the problem.
Newspapers need affirmative action
Viewed in total, the newspaper business is almost lily white. As William Hillard of the Portland Oregonian said, "This business is done by middle-class, middle-aged, white males."
And so it is. There are now 1,700 minority newspaper professionals. This figure represents 4 percent of the total number of journalists, which is more than 90 percent of all editors are white.
THESE FIGURES, when compared with the percentage figures of the composition of the same object, show not being properly represented in the image business, nor have they ever been properly represented.
Newspaper circulation figures reflect the neglect of minorities. Circulation among blacks and other minorities is down sharply. Major metropolitan dailies have lost four percent of minorities' live, and have catered to the desires of the white suburbs and the shopping centers. While overall newspaper circulation figures are rising, they are not in proportion to the increase in population, nor are they rising among blacks.
IT IS SAD to think that it has taken a loss in circulation to awaken the newspaper businessmen to the fact that they have been discriminatory. But such is the case. The process of assimilating blacks into white society is slow, but there has been some progress.
In 1988, for instance, there were only 400 minority professionals in the business and today's 1.700 figure is a sharp improvement. Eighty percent of the major newspapers in 1988 featured even one minority worker in 1988. That figure has since dropped to 68 percent.
Affirmative action always be a buzz word, a catch-all term describing the often elusive desire of Americans to free from the burden in the workplace and in the classroom.
Affirmative action product of past
The term "affirmative action" actually emerged from an executive order by President John F. Kennedy. In 1961, Kenney wrote that the country needed to take "affirmative steps" toward dealing with information in education and employment.
It's also been labeled a second Recon-
nection, in reference to the reverse de-
scription of the first. But the labels are only poetic license. No one term can describe this count.
For more information, go to www.
BUT HIS order defined these steps only as measures barring job discrimination among contractors doing business with the federal government and providing recruiting and promotion of minorities.
That definition was narrow by both today's standards and by yesterday's history
Legal scholars like to pinpoint the beginning of the affirmative action debate with the Henry vs. Ferguson case in 1896. That case was decided by a United States Pleasen case involving a Louisiana law allowing separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, provided there was a license. The Supreme Court modiated the Supreme Court rule that black citizens' rights were adequately observed if the "separate but equal" rule was not unconstitutional.
melissa
thompson
COLUMNIST thompson
THIS DECISION touched off a wave of
Jim Crow legislation and set a precedent for later cases dealing with discrimination.
For 38 years, this reasoning was uplifted. But in 1964, the Court reversed its precedent and ordered the prosecutor to have radically altered. And so had the concept of racial discrimination, as any judge could do.
The next 25 years have brought an incredibly fast thaw in the ice state of racial inequality. However, the speed with which the legal system has assisted astonished and worried—many people.
A PSYCHLOGIST in a consulting firm specializing in equal employment opportunity cases since 1927 had a graphic description of the sudden changes.
He said, "It's been like going from Kitty Hawk to the moon in less than 10 years."
It is in the latter section that critics see inconsistencies. They see the problems as results of the too-basal growth of affirmative action programs.
The concept of affirmative action was exerted in the 1960s by a group called Title VI of that act banned discrimination in federally funded universities and programs. Title VII baned such discrimination in colleges.
SOME RESEARCHERS have suggested that the focus of affirmative action programs in the workplace is faulty. Like any printer's four-collar press that has been
A writer for Forbes, Bob Tamarink, wrote, "The bureaucrats and activists more interested in punishing business for greed have been making progress toward equality of opportunity."
poorly registered, the attempts at racial equality have been a fraction out of whack
Time and resources have been poorly managed, Tamarinka said. From 1974 to 1978, more than $1 billion was spent on back pay, promotions and training for women and minorities—all remedies provided by the violations of the Civil Rights Act's Title VII.
THAT TIME and money could have been to spend to top-notch affirmative action programs, suggested Tamarkin, instead of hiring clerks who hold horns of the government and business.
Some people think the retroactive wages, promotions and training programs already constitute top-notch affirmative action pro-rams.
Perhaps that money was not as wasted as unarmin and other critical思考. Even the censure of Mr. Wagner made, but it was not without much legal push-and-shove from the courts and federal
The legal horizon of affirmative action is not free from landmark decisions, by any means. The Supreme Court will be ruling on affirmative action in work grants to minority-owned businesses. It will be another classic stand-off between affirmative action and reverse discrimination. And it will raise difficult questions that are not easily answered answers throughout a century of debate.
Quota system unfair, regressive
Increasingly, it seems, American colleges and universities are having problems with programs that are aimed at preventing discriminatory practices in admissions and
Many universities have already been tested for discrimination in these areas, and many others are beginning to develop and action programs to avoid local problems.
The questioning of the legality of these supposedly fair and equal quda systems has put many colleges' affirmative action programs in seeparty. New colleges have the burden of developing new affirmative action policies, which are not quda system and yet still help minorities.
But for colleges and universities, establishing affirmative action programs is very touch, especially in light of the Alan Bakee case.
THESE INSTITUTIONS wash the thin line between trying to admit and employ additional numbers of minorities, while trying to preserve high educational standards.
The Harvard plan simply gives extra
A perfect solution for their dilemma has not been found yet. Harvard University has come up with a plan that appears to be working well, but the university without violating anti-discrimination laws.
The Supreme Court decision in the Bakke case created a mass of new problems for colleges and universities. Before Bakke, many colleges relied on quota systems to avoid charges of discrimination. They encouraged or job entrals for minorities, thusriding themselves of suspicions of discrimination.
BUT THESE quota systems in themselves are unfair and discriminatory, as pointed out by the Bake case. In their decision, the theorist argues that the mere liberation of race or sex in employment or admissions but knocked down the use of quota systems to ensure equality in these cases.
John COLUMNIST fischer
credit to minorities in consideration of employment and admissions.
Quota systems for *admissions* and employment have been used too long in college. The program has had to change the students and the institutions' reputations. Lesser qualified students who are admitted to the school or on the job after graduation. And by employing lesser qualified faculty, the university can reduce costs.
"REFUSING INSTITUTIONS the right to choose the most qualified individuals mocks academic standards and ids of excellence," he said, "and it generates hostility and butterness among more qualified insofar who may be paid less or even bypassed."
Allan C. Orstein, an associate professor at Loyola University of Chicago, perhaps sum summarizes the consequences of quota systems:
BUT BESIDES helping minorities and avoiding lawsuits, this plan avoids the unfair and discriminatory guide systems.
"Although such a policy may be required to reduce racial polarization and to produce
IT IS A sad thought that the basis for granting a position or an admission is a person's race, sex or religion rather than his/her gender. So students should boogie to think that a person applying for a teaching position at a college or for admission to medical school would be turned down because he is white and a male, rather than because he lacks the required qualification.
eventual equality, we should not delude ourselves. The present affirmative action program has produced a new kind of social welfare program which is based neither on performance nor quality. It places less competent people in a fast running track where competence compete because they have been situated at a higher level than they can function."
The quota system, then, is just another phase of the skin game that was played with different rules in past years.
Any type of affirmative action program that is disgused discrimination should be abolished. Affirmative action is necessary and is important in guarding against discrimination and in helping correct it, but quota systems are not the way to do it.
Rather, programs that use race or sex as a consideration in employment and admission should be the programs adopted by our colleges and universities.
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The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced or single-spaced. Letters should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affirmed by the university, the should include the writer's class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan reserves the right to edit these letters.
david preston
COLUMNIST
True, the progress is slow, but improved status for blacks has been a slow process in all areas of society for decades. It has been audited by a few government programs.
President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke no truer words than on June 4, 1968, when he declared that for the rapid improvement in societal status for blacks, " freedom is not a luxury, but a right," and centuries by saying "Now you're free to go where you want and do what you desire."
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION is one such program.
Johnson believed that more should be done, and his Executive Order 11246 in September 1965 reinforced that idea.
Johnson ordered all major federal contractors to ensure that employees were trained in the job duties of national origin. Since then, affirmative action programs, thanks primarily to theEqual Employment Opportunity Commission, have become a major aspect of the job description.
COMPANIES, OF course, have not
readily taken to the idea that government should have a say in an individual business' hiring programs. They complain that the government's rules are too time-consuming, complex and vague. Several companies have said they have no experience in Chicago have taken the matter to court.
Gannett has now formulated an incentive policy for its editors and publishers to accelerate affirmative action hiring practices. Gannett will pay cash to the management of any of its papers that submits a report on a candidate's candidacy. Gannett initially made the plan a three-year deal, but has since made it a one-year, direct incentive program.
EARLIER THIS year, Gannett executive editor Bob Gannet, who is editor of Gannet's Rochester newspapers, agreed to hire a 15-year-old activist only after protests and lawsuits were brought by minorities. Giles claimed that the papers' officials "had not acted as racists", and agreed to aim for a goal of 20,000 representation on the two Rochester papers.
In the newspaper business, affirmative action is becoming a major part of bringing blacks into the newsroom. Individual publishers and editors and newspaper groups have shown a trend toward placing their stories in well-defined affirmative action programs.
The Gannet newspaper group, based in Rockefeller, N.Y., is one of the country's leading news organizations, publishing papers nationwide. In those papers there are close to 3,000 professional journalists. Of these, about a quarter or more minorities. Change is coming in the Gannet organization, but there has been a fight for its status.
THE KNIGHT-RIDDER group, the largest employer in the business with nearly 3,000 journalists, has a similar program. The organization also behind Knight-Ridder, has no direct program, but individual publishers within the organization are seeing that affirmative advertising is needed.
There are other positive signs. Robert Maynard, former associate editor of the Washington Post, heads an organization that sponsors summer programs which offers summer programs for minority journalism students. There are many major newsmen around the country.
It has taken long enough for minorities to be represented and recognized in the American press. The present rate of progress needs to be accelerated. Alfalfa motion can and should play a major role in seeing that this acceleration does occur.
Y. Times Special Features
Jews, blacks must work together
By Arthur Hertzberg
ENGLWOOD, N.J.-The ouster of Andrew Young as United States delegate to the United Nations precipitated a confrontation between black and Jews, but it was not.
Apartheid is almost universally opposed Even the raging battles about the use of force in the Organization are not really a Jewish-bitch issue. Andrew Young would sit comfortably in the peace-now movement in Israel or among the $9 million prominent Jews who support the Nazi menace Begin protecting the new settlements near Nabis. It is true that the majority—but not all—of the Zionist moderates remain opposed to dealing with them.
The visible queries about foreign policy are not really the issue between Jews and Muslims, but rather more African that persist in not having relations with Israel, but so have some blacks, including, most notably, Young Andrew speaking in the Security Council.
BUT THE major and continuing issue between the two communities is not Yasser Arafat but rather "affirmative action." The two communities point for the last 10 years. For two decades or more, the American Jewish community has had no significant domestic agenda involving its own self-interest. In the 1980s when the Israeli energies were spent on the black revolution.
Blacks have lambasted Israel's connection with South Africa, and Israel has lambeted that connection. The large arms suppliers and the largest arms suppliers and that several black African states are much more connected to the Israeli army.
FOR MOST Zoonsists, South Africa is an uncomfortable and embarrassing fact on Jerusalem. No one in Israel agrees that Israel should be better than everyone else and describe this dirty world with pride.
By the late 1980s, blacks and Jews began to move apart. Some of the most activist white liberals fought with white liberals biting it. It was said that blacks, to grow to full stature, did not need sympathetic whites—not even Jewish immigrants. Away from whites, much of the organized Jewish community was drifting, and many went to work as servicemen in domestic affairs. In the last decade, the bulk of the Jewish organizations has been for "merit" and against "af-
Despite these differences of opinion within Jewry, the Jewish community as a whole has been perceived by blacks as less aggressive to the blacks' struggle than in the nast.
THE OLD Jewish-black alliance has not been abandoned by all the Jewish organizations. Some have denied special special treatment, but others have provided that race was not the criterion and numerical quotas were not set, because those were devised to be used. Those who have devised such formulas (myself among them, during the six years of the 1950s) are now Jewish Congress] have known very well that their rhetoric was constructed to calm some of their own neo-conservatives while maintaining that their culture
Almost every black leader with whom I have spoken in the last 10 years has said, over and over again, the following: We should work together with Israel along with Israel, even though we know that it is a significant element in America's foreign aid budget. Why can't the Jewish community stop the black concerns are symbolized in "affirmative action?" Why can't other communities, and especially the Jews, meet intergroup bargaining on a plane in fairness?
SUCH A QUESTION, stated so boldly.
cannot simply be brushed aside. It has moral as well as political force. What is the moral benefit of demanding for affirmative action? Herzi, Weizmann, Jabotinsky and Ben-Gurion—all of the great names in Zionism—made a case against it because their argument. They maintained that whatever discomfort it caused to a state, rather than its state, the demand for such a state was morally defensible because it asked for an act of repression at a stateless people for 18 years.
It would not be helpful to the great national debate about policy in the Middle East if this current quarrel between Jews and Muslims reflected itself into wangling about the PLO.
There are both Jews and blacks on the several sides of the argument about the Palestinians, and it is ever clearer that Israel is a spirit of accommodation. Blacks and Jews do need to meet, and about the domestic issue that really lies between them. Such a discussion ought to move, in give-and-take, in order to affirm "affirmative action" for blacks in America.
Arthur Hertzberg, rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Englewood N.J., is vice president of the World Jewish Congress.
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