Innocence and Ignorance

I am happy to respond to The Crimson's invitation to share some of my thoughts and concerns about equal employment opportunity and affirmative action.

For many years, the nation and its institutions have engaged in a sort of national schizophrenia in matters relating to race. This has been particularly true with respect to two of the basic human rights--the right to education and the right to employment. These two rights are obviously interrelated. One does find it a bit disheartening, in the 197th year of this nation's existence under what has been called the world's truest democracy, and in Harvard's 339th year, that we are here spending an inordinate amount of energy, resources and time dealing with the fundamental question of whether men and women should be treated fairly in their efforts to acquire an education and to obtain employment.

The Federal government, after years of both benign neglect and malignant retreat, discovered during the 1960's that America cannot survive half-lie and half-truth. It could not permit and promote a positive program of a comfortable life for most of its citizens; while affirmatively excluding many others.

It was a consequence of this realization that caused Congress to enact the second strongest civil rights acts in the country's history. Again, in about 100 years, the nation had enacted laws designed to give equal access and equal entry to every citizen. But as it had noted after the legislation of the 1860's, there must be an enabling clause, and indeed a Federal mandate, if they were to mean more than just another empty paper promise. It was such recognition through which the phrase "affirmative action" came to be a part of the required action in this "new" civil rights effort.

Unfortunately, the term affirmative action has been abused and misused to such an extent that it seems to be losing its meaning, and the concept of equality, which undergirds it, is undergoing a negative plundering through distortion, fear and misunderstanding. Affirmative action programs, where properly enforced, simply broaden the horizons of institutions by requiring them to expand their search for persons who have the requisite skills and talents to perform at various levels within the institutional structure.

Charges have been, and are being, made that affirmative action is "reverse discrimination" and a tool by which government will "lower the standards" of the institution. Those who level such charges say further that affirmative action programs raise the rights of the group above the rights of the individual; thus making group membership the criteria rather than individual merit. This, they hold, is in violation of the democratic principles upon which this country was built. Because I am often asked to respond to these charges--and my response sets forth clearly my views on affirmative action and civil rights--my response continues to be:

First, in response to the charge that the individual, as the basic political unit of a democracy, has been superseded by ethnic, religious or other groups, it must be said that discrimination on the basis of race, sex or religious and ethnic affiliation is the most blatant violation of what some claim to be the root of Constitutional principle. For a good part of American history, the individual black person, for instance, has been discriminated against precisely because of his membership in a certain race. The same may be said for women--that individual women have been discriminated against on the basis of their sex.

The group memberships mentioned above, which so long served as grounds for discrimination, must be taken into consideration in order to rectify the discriminatory policies that emerged to surround them. However, as unqualified criteria for employment, acceptance, etc., such membership is not and never has been inherent in affirmative action plans. Those who claim the contrary are sadly mistaken. They may be said to be victims of several false and very damaging assumptions.

Let me examine some of these assumptions. By doing so, I hope to answer the charge, mentioned above, that reverse discrimination is the result of affirmative action programs and policies.

There is an erroneous premise holding that if a member of a minority group or a woman is hired, he or she is ipso facto "unqualified," that his or her position represents a denial to a white male.

Another facet of this premise is the idea that college and university administrators have caved in to certain pressures to recruit, admit and hire people who do not have requisite skills and talents to perform at levels to which they have been appointed (and, might I add, which have not been traditionally held by women or minority groups). In other words, progress in affirmative action goals is equated with regression in the principle of merit as a criterion for hiring.

This association of progress in one area with regression in another is only a result of innocence and ignorance. Groups within the non-majority community fail to recognize that the pool of competition has broadened significantly. For a number of years, white males had to be concerned only with competing among their own kind. Consequently, it was easy to grasp and then maintain the narrow gates of opportunity. The traditional maintenance of circumscribed opportunity allowed for continuation of such circumscription when minority groups and women, in significant numbers, began to seek entrance to a large variety of jobs and careers.

The purpose of affirmative action is to abolish whatever hindrances are currently prohibiting minority groups and women from entering the mainstream of the American economy and political flow. Affirmative action does not seek to set quotas, but to establish goals. Affirmative action plans and timetables do not seek to further circumscribe opportunity, but to implement the principles of equal opportunity--principles so dear to the hearts of Americans. Affirmative action principles, however, are not designed to inhibit personnel officers and admissions committees, but to broaden the scope of their choices.

It is possible that in some cases and in some institutions, these programs may have been misdirected and misused. Surely, though, we must not allow mistakes to serve as bases for judging intentions. And surely, we must not allow certain uninformed programs to overshadow our principles. Do we cut off a person's head in our effort to cure his or her dandruff?

I thought it unfortunate that neither Senator McGovern nor President Nixon seized the opportunity during the last election to rise to a statesmanlike stature and call for an end to the domestic quibble over whether goals or quotas are the best way to deliver and ensure overdue Constitutional obligations. Both men could, and in my judgment should, have pointed to the mandates flowing from the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Acts from 1866 to 1972 and the several Executive Orders--all of which were designed to eliminate all disabilities and burdens placed upon this country's oppressed people; and con-commitantly to impose formal requirements on the legal institutions of this nation to guarantee full participation in its economic and political life. It is clear that the hindrances and grievances of the people, for whom these acts were promulgated, have never been remedied. Immunities, privileges and rights exist; but they have never been fully protected or equally extended.

It will be a great tragedy, in my judgement, if members of the Harvard community, who for years on their own motion have identified to a great extent with the aspirations and struggles of minority groups, should now assume the role of gatekeepers.

Finally, I would like to emphasize the enormous benefits that may be derived from the accurate applications of affirmative action principles. It is in the best interest of all Americans to include and rejoice in the inclusion of those who have not yet been allowed full participation in American society. A continuation of the status quo is not only a self-perpetuating fallacy, but an indication of an irredeemable disintegration of the fragile institution we call America.

Walter J. Leonard, special assistant to the President, is the administrator of Harvard's Affirmative Action Program.