Reflecting on Affirmative Action
The subject of affirmative action is a highly controversial one in the U.S. for several reasons, including the fact that some people view the phenomenon as a form of reverse discrimination, negating meritocracy. Still, AUB purports to be an affirmative action institution, so it would be interesting to reflect on what the concept means and how it originated.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, affirmative action is “a policy or a program that seeks to redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment.” A key term here is “past discrimination”; instituting affirmative action therefore means that you are admitting past wrongdoing, a noble thing. Another key term is “active measures”; in the U.S. these measures generally involve quotas for women and minorities in order to counteract, for example, the effects of discriminatory employment practices. Still, the definition of “discriminatory practices” has been contested; for example, it has been claimed that there is a difference between intentional and unintentional discrimination. Furthermore, the meaning of "equal opportunity" has been questioned.
A euphemism for affirmative action commonly used these days at AUB – and please correct me if I am wrong - is “promoting diversity”. However, besides the quotas we hear about (but most of us don’t know much about) in admissions and hiring, the method of application of affirmative action remains somewhat elusive. We do see the following statement appended to job advertisements: “The American University of Beirut is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer”. Additionally, we can find a “Policy Against Discrimination and Harassment” mentioning equal opportunity regardless of “gender, race, religion, color, national origin, disability, marital status, age, creed, citizenship, or veteran status”. That’s about it, though.
Historically speaking, civil rights programs in the U.S. grew out of the need to end slavery and stop racial discrimination. By the time the Civil Rights Act had taken effect in the 1960s, the concept of affirmative action had come to encompass - besides race - color, religion, sex, and national origin. In the 1980s the Reagan administration sought to water down the effects of the phenomenon, but Congress later passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991, emphasizing the importance of compensation, payback, and restitution in cases of unlawful harassment and intentional discrimination.
In the past decade, affirmative action has come under attack once again, especially by those who believe that it is obsolete, no longer needed, because their society has already become egalitarian (colour blind, etc.). However, its proponents want to broaden the concept further. The latest news on affirmative action comes from a New York Times article proposing the widening of its scope to include the physically unattractive, offering “ legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals” (Hamermesh, “Ugly? You May Have a Case”). You might think this is a joke, but the author, a professor of economics at the University of Texas, Austin, ends on a serious note: “… you shouldn’t be surprised to see the United States heading toward this new legal frontier.”
AUB has more urgent issues to deal with, but it does tend to follow U.S. trends. Following up on this latest piece of news, therefore, wouldn't be an entirely irrelevant activity.
Posted by May Mikati on 09 September 2011, 2:41 PM
The subject of affirmative action is a highly controversial one in the U.S. for several reasons, including the fact that some people view the phenomenon as a form of reverse discrimination, negating meritocracy. Still, AUB purports to be an affirmative action institution, so it would be interesting to reflect on what the concept means and how it originated.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, affirmative action is “a policy or a program that seeks to redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment.” A key term here is “past discrimination”; instituting affirmative action therefore means that you are admitting past wrongdoing, a noble thing. Another key term is “active measures”; in the U.S. these measures generally involve quotas for women and minorities in order to counteract, for example, the effects of discriminatory employment practices. Still, the definition of “discriminatory practices” has been contested; for example, it has been claimed that there is a difference between intentional and unintentional discrimination. Furthermore, the meaning of "equal opportunity" has been questioned.
A euphemism for affirmative action commonly used these days at AUB – and please correct me if I am wrong - is “promoting diversity”. However, besides the quotas we hear about (but most of us don’t know much about) in admissions and hiring, the method of application of affirmative action remains somewhat elusive. We do see the following statement appended to job advertisements: “The American University of Beirut is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer”. Additionally, we can find a “Policy Against Discrimination and Harassment” mentioning equal opportunity regardless of “gender, race, religion, color, national origin, disability, marital status, age, creed, citizenship, or veteran status”. That’s about it, though.
Historically speaking, civil rights programs in the U.S. grew out of the need to end slavery and stop racial discrimination. By the time the Civil Rights Act had taken effect in the 1960s, the concept of affirmative action had come to encompass - besides race - color, religion, sex, and national origin. In the 1980s the Reagan administration sought to water down the effects of the phenomenon, but Congress later passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991, emphasizing the importance of compensation, payback, and restitution in cases of unlawful harassment and intentional discrimination.
In the past decade, affirmative action has come under attack once again, especially by those who believe that it is obsolete, no longer needed, because their society has already become egalitarian (colour blind, etc.). However, its proponents want to broaden the concept further. The latest news on affirmative action comes from a New York Times article proposing the widening of its scope to include the physically unattractive, offering “ legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals” (Hamermesh, “Ugly? You May Have a Case”). You might think this is a joke, but the author, a professor of economics at the University of Texas, Austin, ends on a serious note: “… you shouldn’t be surprised to see the United States heading toward this new legal frontier.”
AUB has more urgent issues to deal with, but it does tend to follow U.S. trends. Following up on this latest piece of news, therefore, wouldn't be an entirely irrelevant activity.
Posted by May Mikati on 09 September 2011, 2:41 PM
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