Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action:
Does the First Exist and is the Latter Really Needed?
By: Howard W. Bell, Jr.
February 10, 2000
Few subjects generate more controversy and emotion without resolution than race and sex based
affirmative action. The goal of this paper, therefore, is simply to answer the following questions.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Why was affirmative action created?
What is affirmative action?
Why should race and sex based affirmative action programs still be required?
What is causing the difference in standardized test scores between blacks and whites?
What “affirmative actions”, if any can and should be taken?
Why was Affirmative Action created?
The road to affirmative action in this country has been illuminated, in part, by the light of the
Declaration of Independence that established the ideal of equality of all people before the
Creator. This beacon of light is embodied in the following sentence.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In spite of this ideal, however, the road to full equality for all citizens regardless of race, color,
religion, sex, or national origin has been a rocky one. For Americans born prior to 1950 and
raised in this country, many of the rocks in the road were current events. For Americans born
after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the overt acts of racism that lead to the
implementation of affirmative action programs are “ancient” history and may not be known at
all. This paper begins, therefore, by examining some of the historical events that led to the
implementation of affirmative action programs.1
The need for affirmative action began in 1791 when the Constitution and Bill of Rights
legitimized slavery. This legitimization of slavery lasted until 1863 when President Lincoln’s
Emancipation Proclamation set slaves free in southern states, and 1865 when the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution officially abolished slavery throughout the nation. These steps
were followed by the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 and passage and
ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution in 1866 and 1870.
1
For those wanting a more extensive discussion of this history, I recommend two Web sites. The first is the
Affirmative
Action Timeline by Americans
United for Affirmative
Action (AUAA) at
www.auaa.org/timeline/index.html. This site presents a fairly complete timeline of affirmative action. The second
site is the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Briefing Paper site at www.aclu.org/library/pbp17.html. The
briefing paper at this site contains a fairly concise “Affirmative Action Timeline”.
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 2
However, these steps towards racial equality were undercut by a series of events starting with the
1883 Supreme Court decision which struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that barred
discrimination by non-governmental entities. Erosion of steps towards equality continued as
southern legislatures passed segregationist statutes known as “Jim Crow” laws and voting
restrictions such as “poll taxes”. The Jim Crow laws were based on the notion that segregated
public facilities were acceptable as long as they were roughly equivalent, a doctrine upheld by
the Supreme Court’s 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision.
In 1917, the legitimacy of discrimination at the national level began to change when the Supreme
Court, in Buchanan v. Warley ruled that the system of residential segregation that was enforced
by the City of Louisville, Kentucky violated the Fourteenth Amendment. During the next thirtyfive years, in response to pressure from the Civil Rights movement, a number of Presidential
Executive Orders were issued that barred segregation by government contractors and integrated
the armed forces. A major milestone occurred in 1954 with the Supreme Court decision of
Brown v. Board of Education that overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v.
Ferguson. The dismantling of discriminatory practices continued with the passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 and the issuance of Executive Order 11246 in 1965. The term “affirmative
action” first appeared in Executive Order 11246 in a set of nondiscrimination provisions
requiring that:
“The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and
that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color,
religion, sex or national origin. Such action shall include, but not be limited to the
following: employment, upgrading, demotion, or transfer; recruitment or recruitment
advertising; layoff or termination; rates of pay or other forms of compensation; and
selection for training, including apprenticeship.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson articulated the rationale for affirmative action programs in a speech
to the 1965 graduating class of Howard University when he said:
“But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying:
Now, you are free to go where you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you
please. You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him,
bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, "you are free to compete with all the
others," and still justly believe you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough to
open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through
those gates. This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We
seek not just freedom but opportunity - not just legal equity but human ability - not just
equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result.”
What is Affirmative Action?
For many blacks and women, affirmative action is viewed as a set of practices that protect them
from current patterns of discrimination. At the other end of the spectrum, some white males
view affirmative action as a set of practices that enable blacks and women to obtain positions
that should have gone to more qualified white males. For the purposes of this paper, the
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 3
American Civil Liberties Union definition of affirmative action is used. This definition refers to
affirmative action as a series of program actions with the following characteristics.2



They must be flexible, using goals and timetables to increase minority and female
participation as permissible, but not quotas.
They must protect seniority. Programs may not interfere with the legitimate seniority
expectations of current employees.
They must be temporary solutions. Programs may last no longer than necessary to remedy
the discrimination.
Should Race and Sex Based Affirmative Action Practices Still Be Required?
While the above definition is fairly modest, many foes of race and sex based affirmative action
ask a very basic and legitimate question. If discrimination in America has been illegal for over
thirty years, why is any form of race and sex based affirmative action still required? Worded
another way, why can’t blacks and women compete as individuals based on their merit?
Debates over these questions often lead to heated discussions with no resolution because the
people on each side of the debate have very different views of reality bolstered by their
perceptions of the facts. Using racism as an example, the dichotomy in perceptions is seen in a
poll commissioned by The National Conference, a workplace diversity organization. The poll
found that while 63% of whites thought African Americans have equal opportunity 80%, of
African Americans felt they did not have equal opportunity.3 A similar dichotomy in perceptions
was cited in a Washington Post article about the perceptions of racism by blacks, whites, and
Hispanics in the military.4 According to this article, a congressionally mandated survey of
40,000 armed services members, concluded in February 1997 and released in November 1999,
found that 20% of blacks and 13% of Hispanics in uniform reported they had been given inferior
assignments or evaluations because of racial bias. Only 4% of whites reported this type of
discriminatory behavior. The Washington Post article also cited a Washington Post-ABC News
poll released in 1997 which found that 44% of blacks, but only 17% of whites, believe that
blacks face “a lot” of discrimination in America.
These conflicting perceptions create what I call a “Discrimination Perception Gap” which
undermines the ability of blacks, whites, and women to have a meaningful dialog on the need for
race and sex based affirmative action programs. To close this Discrimination Perception Gap
requires an agreement on the definition of racism and sexism and the presentation of objective,
hard facts that can separate realities from perceptions.
However, defining racism and sexism is itself controversial. For the purposes of this paper,
several terms will be used to refer to the various forms of behavior that are considered to be
manifestations of racism. Analogous terms could be used to describe sexism. Using racism as
This definition is contained in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Briefing Paper found at the following URL –
http://www.aclu.org/library/pbp17.html
3
This quote is found in the ACLU Briefing Paper at www.aclu.org/library/pbp17.html.
4
Roberto Suro and Michael A. Fletcher, “75 Percent of Military’s Minorities See Racism”, The Washington Post,
November 23, 1999, page A01.
2
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February 10, 2000
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an example, most whites bristle when they are labeled racists by blacks. This is because most
whites equate racism with “Aware” racism, which they condemn, where Aware racism includes
both “Aware/Blatant Racism”5 and “Aware/Covert Racism”6. In addition, they assume that the
nation’s legal system is being used effectively to end what they view as isolated cases of racist
acts. An example of Aware/Blatant Racism is the murder of James Byrd, Jr. in June 1998. This
case involved three white men, with Aware/Blatant Racist views, chaining a black man to the
back of a pickup truck and dragging him several miles until his body tore apart and he died. An
example of Aware/Covert Racism is the Texaco case that was settled in November 1996. This
case involved racial discrimination complaints that were denied by the company until a tape
recording, which caught top company officials making racial slurs and plotting to hide or shred
documents sought by the plaintiffs in the discrimination lawsuit, was made public.
The difficulty for most blacks in accepting a definition of racism that only includes Aware
Racism is that it eliminates from consideration “Unaware/Unintentional Racism”7 which is a
subtle form of racism. For these blacks, as well as those women who view most men as being
sexist, discrimination is a very real and persistent reality that simply became more sophisticated
with the passage of civil rights legislation and the Presidential Executive Orders of the 1960’s.
In their view, although legal barriers have been eliminated, the existence of Unaware/
Unintentional racism and sexism have created a number of institutional non-legal barriers to true
equal opportunity of admissions, employment, and promotions. Another form of subtle Racism
is “Internalized Racism”8. This form of racism is particularly pernicious because it influences
the way that many blacks think about themselves. As a result, blacks are sometimes unaware of
the extent to which racism may influence their own beliefs and actions.
A study that documents the extent to which subtle racist images and stereotypes influence the
thinking of both blacks and whites is found in an ABC news report about a test called the
“Implicit Association Test”.9 This test revealed that 90 to 95 percent of people who take this
psychological test show an unconscious bias. Interestingly, this test is reported to indicate that
while blacks show more variation in their results than do whites they do not do significantly
better on the test. This would tend to confirm what many have argued, that the negative
stereotypes about blacks and all things “black” versus whites and all things “white” affects
everyone in this country. While this study does not attribute discriminatory behavior to the
Aware/Blatant Racism – For the purposes of this paper, this term is used to refer to a form of racism with which
most people are familiar. It involves actively and intentionally expressing hatred towards others to their face or in
other public ways.
6
Aware/Covert Racism – is an offshoot of Aware/Blatant Racism. This form of racism tends to be a little more
private and a little more hidden. The racist intentions are still there, but the desire to be overt about these intentions
is not. The people expressing this kind of racism will find ways of discriminating with or without providing an
explanation for or acknowledging their behavior.
7
Unaware/Unintentional Racism - This is perhaps the most pernicious, and may be the most pervasive, form of
racism. It is also the hardest to challenge because the person expressing racist attitudes is both unaware of them and
does not intend to be offensive. Often, this form of racism emerges when someone tries to appear non-racist and yet
is uninformed about their own prejudices and stereotypes.
8
Internalized Racism - This form of racism impacts most people of color and indigenous peoples on many different
levels. The stereotypes and attitudes of the dominant society are internalized by members of oppressed groups and
peoples and taken for truth or inform the ways they think about themselves and others from similar backgrounds or
cultures.
9
This test is reported in an article by Claudine Chamberlain of ABC News, “Roots of Racism Revealed”. The
article can be found at http://204.202.137.112/sections/living/InYourHead/allinyourhead_11.html.
5
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
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negative attitudes towards blacks, it does set the stage for other studies that show clear patterns
of discriminatory behavior involving the subtle forms of racism.
For example, a study, conducted by the National Urban Institute, sent equally qualified pairs of
job applicants on a series of interviews for entry-level jobs. The young men were coached to
display similar levels of enthusiasm and "articulateness." The young white men received 45%
more job offers than their black co-testers; Anglo testers were offered the job 52% more often
than Latino "applicants."10
In another study at Princeton University, male undergraduates interviewed black and white male
high school students, ostensibly for a position on a team slated to compete with other teams on
educational tasks. The researchers identified several nonverbal cues to racist attitudes manifested
during the interviews. The cues included sitting relatively far from, instead of closer to, a black
subject, and looking away instead of looking the subject straight in the eye. The same
researchers then had a group of college students interview some contemporaries for a job. While
these interviewees were exclusively white males, the interviewers were told to treat some of
them as blacks by using the nonverbal cues to racism identified in the first part of the study.
Judges, unaware of deliberate differences in interview style, analyzed the videotaped interviews.
They decided that those white students who, unbeknownst to either judges or subjects, were
treated as black applicants, were less qualified for the job than white students treated as white job
seekers. In other words, the white students treated as "black" job applicants were perceived, due
to the use of nonverbal cues associated with racist attitudes, to have performed less well during
the interview than white students treated as white applicants.11
In a third study, researchers in Cleveland sought to learn if professional judgments of policeofficer competence was in any way related to race. Comparing performance ratings of officers
made by peers and supervisors with personality assessments made by psychologists, researchers
found no correlation between performance ratings and personality types among white police
officers. The reverse was true for blacks. A black officer who was assertive, self-confident,
heterosexual, and outgoing—traits usually associated with high police performance—tended to
receive the lowest performance ratings, indicating bias against blacks by peers and supervisors.12
While the above studies of unconscious bias all involve blacks and whites, a number of articles
suggest that similar unconscious biases affect the way women are treated.13 A recent example of
this unconscious bias and its affect on women is documented in a report issued by M.I.T. in the
spring of 1999. According to the December 3, 1999 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education,
this report, which was the result of a four year study of gender discrimination at M.I.T.,
acknowledges discrimination against female scientists.14 This internal study that documented
10
This quote is found in the ACLU Briefing Paper at www.aclu.org/library/pbp17.html.
This and a summary of other studies reported by the American Psychological Association can be found at
http://www.apa.org/ppo/colorblind/findings.html.
12
This and a summary of other studies reported by the American Psychological Association can be found at
http://www.apa.org/ppo/colorblind/findings.html
13
Patricia B. Campbell and Jennifer N. Storo, “ Girls Are … Boys Are: Myths, Stereotypes & Gender Differences”
www.tiac.net/users/ckassoc/Stereo.pdf.
14
Robin Wilson, “An M.I.T Professor’s Suspicion of Bias Leads to a New Movement for Academic Women”,
Chronicle of Higher Education, December 3, 1999, page A16.
11
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February 10, 2000
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gender bias against women in the School of Science at M.I.T., concluded that the bias was not
conscious or willful on the part of men at M.I.T. Instead, according to Nancy Hopkins who led
the internal study, the gender bias operates in a “stealthlike way.” As the Chronicle article notes,
however unintentional the discriminatory behavior may be, it can have devastating effects on
women’s careers.
If the above studies and perceptions were the only ones needing to be addressed, the debate over
race and sex based affirmative action might already have ended. However, in spite of the facts
documented in the studies referenced above, the debate remains clouded because of the belief
among many whites, especially white males, that non-whites and women have benefited
significantly from affirmative action programs to the point where “reverse discrimination” now
occurs. Reverse discrimination is perceived as occurring in at least two areas, the workplace and
college admissions.
Reverse Discrimination
Possibly the most visible cases of alleged reverse discrimination are in college admissions. Here
the issue of reverse discrimination is usually seen as a black white issue with blacks, who are
believed to be less qualified than whites, being admitted to highly selective colleges and
universities. This is due in part to the fact that the pool of minority students capable of being
admitted to selective colleges and universities, without some form of affirmative action program,
has not grown significantly during the past thirty years. While the reasons for this state of affairs
are many and complex, a major contributor to the situation is the reliance on SAT and ACT test
scores as a measure of student ability. These tests are viewed by many as a single, clear, and
unambiguous measure of a student’s qualifications, where the SAT test scores for African
American students (to include middle income African American students) tends to be around 200
points lower, on average, than the scores of white and Asian students.
While there remains a heated debate over whether or not the SAT and ACT tests are racially
biased, the fact remains that in spite of efforts to eliminate racial bias in the tests, the gap in test
scores has not changed significantly. As a result, affirmative action programs designed to
increase the number of black students at selective colleges not only remain in place, but have no
anticipated termination date. The lack of an anticipated end date for affirmative action
admissions practices at selective colleges and universities runs counter to the temporary solution
requirement that is the third characteristic of an affirmative action program as defined in the
“What is Affirmative Action” section of this paper. Hence, there appear to be legitimate issues
and questions, which must be addressed in the area of affirmative action and reverse
discrimination in college admissions.
The issues involving reverse discrimination in the workplace, however, appear to be very
different. In the workplace, the perception that reverse discrimination exists is based in part on
stories about whites who believe, or know someone who believes, that he/she has been unfairly
passed over for a job or a promotion that went to a “less qualified” non-white. It is also based, in
part, on white men who believe, or know someone who believes, he has been passed over for a
job or promotion that went to a less qualified woman. It may also be based in part on the
perception that the issues involving reverse discrimination in the workplace are simply an
extension of reverse discrimination at selective colleges. For people who believe that reverse
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 7
discrimination is a significant problem, they accept each story which appears in the news about a
non-white or women being improperly selected over a white or a man as more proof that there is
a trend towards favoring less qualified non-whites and women over better qualified whites and
men.
While this perception on the part of some whites is very strong, statistics presented at a web
site15 called “Affirmative Action Myths vs. Facts” created by the Coalition Against Bigotry and
Bias (CABB)16 show that:

Of more than 90,000 complaints of employment discrimination filed with the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission in 1994, less than 3 percent involved allegations
of reverse discrimination against white males.

Of more than 3,000 reported federal court cases reviewed in a recent study commissioned
by the U.S. Department of Labor alleging discrimination from mid-1990 to mid-1994,
fewer than 100 alleged reverse discrimination and only six of those 100 were resolved in
favor of white men alleging reverse discrimination. In addition, the courts found that the
vast majority of reverse discrimination cases were without merit and that several were
brought by whites who appeared to be less qualified than the minorities who were hired
or promoted.
While the above statistics may be seen by some as resolving the issue of reverse discrimination,
in the workplace, the above data does have the following limitations:
1.
2.
It only deals with “reported” cases and not with the number of actual occurrences of
reverse discrimination; and
It presents a snap shot of events at one point in time, not a trend over several years.
However, while the above facts may not prove that reverse discrimination is not widespread in
the workplace, they do suggest that:
1.
2.
Less than 10% of the alleged cases of reverse discrimination, regardless of what the total
number of alleged cases may be, are likely to be true cases of reverse discrimination; and
As the Labor Department report also stated – "Many of the cases were the result of a
disappointed applicant...erroneously assuming that when a woman or minority got the
job, it was because of race or sex, not qualification."
The Coalition Against Bigotry and Bias “Affirmative Action Myths vs. Facts” site can be found at
http://bbcc.ctc.edu/~webb/cabb.htm.
16
The agencies and organizations that comprise the CABB are: Washington State Human Rights Commission, King
County Office of Civil Rights Enforcement, Office of Minority and Women's Business Enterprise, Washington State
Commission on African American Affairs, Washington State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs,
Governor's Committee on Disability Issues in Employment, Washington State Commission on Hispanic Affairs,
Washington State Department of Personnel, NW Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, City of Seattle Human
Rights Commission, City of Tacoma Human Rights Department, Governor's Office of Indian Affairs, Washington
Education Association, Concerned Citizens Coalition.
15
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February 10, 2000
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This latter observation of the U.S. Labor Department study, when combined with the other
studies cited in this paper, suggests that subtle forms of racism and sexism create a phenomenon
that might be called the “Competency Paradox”.
Competency Paradox
The Competency Paradox is a term that I use to describe a situation with the following
characteristics:
1.
2.
Blacks and/or women hired or promoted into traditionally white and/or male roles/
positions are viewed as incompetent until proven competent;
Conversely whites, and especially white males, hired or promoted into any role/position
are viewed as competent until proven incompetent.
Another aspect of this Paradox is that a person’s efforts are judged very differently depending on
whether one is judged as competent or incompetent until proven otherwise. For example, people
judged to be competent until proven incompetent will have each success seen as proof of their
competency, and unless overwhelming evidence accumulates to the contrary any failures will be
dismissed with excuses like:
1.
2.
3.
4.
It was bad luck;
It could have happened to anyone;
No one could have foreseen that outcome;
He is young and just needs a little more time/seasoning.
These people will also be viewed positively for promotions. This will occur even when the
promotion is into a position not directly related to the current one because past successes are seen
as a confirmation of talent and an ability to overcome challenges.
Conversely, people judged to be incompetent until proven competent will have each failure or
partial success seen as a verification of their incompetence. In addition, until and unless
overwhelming evidence accumulates to the contrary, each success will be dismissed by phrases
such as:
1.
2.
3.
He/she was just lucky;
It was a minor accomplishment that anyone could have done; or
I wonder who helped him/her?
These people will not be viewed positively for promotions. This often occurs because there is
not a high level of confidence that past successes are truly based on ability. This is especially
true when the promotion is into a position not directly related to the current position because past
successes are not seen as a confirmation of talents and abilities that might be helpful in the new
situation. It is this aspect of the Competency Paradox, which seems to contribute to the existence
of glass ceilings for minorities and females seeking promotions.
The net result of the Competency Paradox is that very few non-whites or women are ever viewed
as truly competent and worthy of promotions unless they work a lot harder and are more
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 9
successful than their white and/or male counterparts. This situation has lead to a saying in the
black community that “if you are black you will have to work twice as hard to get half as far.”
The Case for Continuing Some Form of Race and Sex Based Affirmative Action
The various studies and observations arising from the above discussions lead to the following
conclusions about workplace discrimination:
1.
2.
3.
4.
While Aware racism and sexism may not be widespread, subtle racist and sexist attitudes
are widespread, affect the vast majority of America’s population regardless of race and
sex, and are generally unknown to the holder of the attitudes;
Racist and sexist attitudes that lead to acts of discrimination, can be communicated on a
non-verbal level;
Discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and ethnicity is still widespread in America even
though it has been illegal for over thirty years, and has real and negative impacts on the
ability of blacks and other non-white groups, as well as women, to obtain jobs and
promotions on the basis of unbiased evaluations of individual merit; and
Because race and sex based discrimination still exists; color and sex-blind approaches
will not eliminate discriminatory practices since they do not address the factors which
keep non-whites and women from being judged individually on their merit.
What Causes the Difference in Standardized Test Scores?
In the above discussion about the perception of reverse discrimination in selective college
admissions, the discrepancy between white and black achievement scores was noted. Key
questions that were not addressed in that discussion were “what is causing African American
standardized test scores to be below that of whites and Asians on average” and “does the
difference represent a true difference in student qualifications or something else?”
Dr. Claude M. Steele17 proposed and tested a hypothesis that the poor performance of blacks has
less to do with their preparation or ability than with their reaction to the threat that they will be
proven to conform to stereotypes about their capacity to succeed. He calls this phenomenon
“Stereotype threat”.18 Dr. Steele’s initial motivation for exploring this hypothesis was to find an
explanation for why black college students have not fared well on predominantly white
campuses. However, in seeking an answer to this question, he proposes a theory that explains at
least part of the discrepancy in standardized test scores. In addition, while Dr. Steele’s research
is limited to the reactions of students to Stereotype threat, it is unlikely that the reactions he
observed cease when blacks leave school and enter the world of work. Hence, this paper
presents Dr. Steele’s research because it may be relevant to the performance of blacks seeking
employment and promotions in the workplace and who must take and pass standardized tests.
Dr. Steele and his colleagues define “Stereotype threat” as “the threat of being viewed through
the lens of a negative stereotype, or the fear of doing something that would inadvertently confirm
17
Claude M. Steele is the Lucie Stein Professor in the Social Sciences at Stanford University.
Claude M. Steele, “Thin Ice “Stereotype Threat” and Black College Students”, The Atlantic Monthly, August
1999, page 46.
18
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that stereotype”.19 According to Dr. Steele and his colleagues, persons affected by Stereotype
threat can react in a number of ways. Some people try so hard to “disprove” the stereotype that
they become inefficient and ineffective in their study habits and test taking practices. Other
people try to reduce the stress created by Stereotype threat, by learning to care less about the
situations and activities, which precipitate the feeling of threat. For these latter individuals, they
react to increasing levels of emotional pain caused by a perception of negative stereotype by
withdrawing psychic investment from the part of life that creates the pain, thus causing
“disidentification”. When enough members of the stereotype threatened group react this way,
the mutual support these individuals give to one another may cause disidentification to become a
group norm.
In addition to these general conclusions, Dr. Steele and his colleagues also concluded that:20
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
When a difficult verbal test was presented as a test of ability, black students performed
dramatically less well than white students did even though the two groups were
statistically matched in terms of ability level. However, when the same test was
presented to students as a laboratory task designed to study how certain problems are
generally solved and not as a measure of a person’s intellectual ability, the black
students’ performance on the test rose to match that of equally qualified whites.
Simply sitting down to take a difficult test of ability was enough to make black students
mindful of their race and of racial stereotypes.
Stereotype threat can impair the intellectual functioning in a group unlikely to have any
sense of group inferiority. White male students who were strong in math were told that a
difficult math test they were about to take was one on which Asians generally performed
better than whites. These white male students performed less well than white males who
were not told anything.
Students under Stereotype threat become inefficient on a test that rewards efficient test
taking skills because they reread questions, reread the multiple choices, and rechecked
their answers, more when they were under Stereotype threat than when they were not.
Students who were most oriented to succeed on tests were the most impaired by
Stereotype threat. This indicates that a person has to care about a situation in order to be
disturbed by the prospect of being stereotyped in it.
Students, who were not motivated to try to do well on the tests, stopped trying very hard
when they discovered its difficulty and got a low score. For these students, performance
did not differ based on whether or not they were at risk of being judged stereotypically.
This is what would be expected of students engaged in “disidentification”.
Stereotype threat depresses the performance of accomplished female math students on
difficult math tests and their performance improves dramatically when the threat is lifted.
An interesting corollary to the above results is an observation made by Dr. Philip Uri Treisman,
an innovator in math workshops for minority students. Dr. Treisman observed that his black
calculus students at the University of California at Berkeley tended to work alone for long hours
in an inefficient manner while trying to learn a given academic subject.21 An example of
19
Ibid., page 46.
Ibid., pages 47-51.
21
Ibid., page 51.
20
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working inefficiently was their checking and rechecking their calculations against the correct
answers at the back of the book rather than focusing on the concepts involved. Unfortunately,
neither Dr. Steele nor Treisman offer a hypothesis for the lone study behavior. Hence, it is not
clear whether some form of Stereotype threat, a manifestation of Internalized racism, or some
other factor might play a role in causing black students to tend to study alone.
Finally, Dr. Steele’s research showed that racial trust plays a significant role in the level to which
black students are motivated to work hard to achieve positive results. More specifically, when
black students were convinced they could trust being judged fairly and were expected to do well
on essays they had written, they were more motivated than any other group of students in Dr.
Steele’s study to take their essays home and work on them. This occurred even though the
students would not receive credit for the essays.22
While Dr. Steele does not represent that all of the discrepancy in standardized test scores can be
explained by the existence of Stereotype threat, two significant conclusions can be drawn from
his work. The first is that for bright, hard working, highly motivated black and female students,
their success may depend less on expectations, motivations, or genes than on their trust that
stereotypes about their group will not have a limiting affect in their school world. The second is
that for black students who have disidentified with most intellectual pursuits, and female students
who have disidentified with mathematics and science, a group culture can arise that discourages
efforts to excel in these areas, thus reducing the pool of qualified persons available to compete in
“non-traditional” areas.
What Affirmative Actions, If Any, Can and Should be Taken?
The continuation of affirmative action programs is in part a reaction to the continued existence of
discriminatory practices. As established earlier in this paper, although discrimination based on
race, sex, and other factors was outlawed over thirty years ago, discriminatory practices in the
workplace still exist. However, as time has passed and affirmative action programs, especially in
the area of college admissions, have continued with no anticipated end date in sight, support for
race and sex based affirmative action programs has decreased. That is not to say that Americans
are unwilling to support affirmative action programs when there is specific evidence that
discriminatory practices have occurred. However, the issues surrounding affirmative action are
sufficiently complex, and divisive, that the thoughts presented by William Raspberry on this
subject may be relevant to the debate over what affirmative actions can and should be taken.23.
Raspberry asks: “When it comes to civil rights, can it be that black Americans are fighting a war
we've already won? … That's not the same as wondering whether racism no longer exists or
whether social and economic equality have been achieved. The answers to those questions are
sadly obvious. … No, what I'm wondering is whether we have achieved about what there is to be
achieved from a civil rights perspective, in which case it might be time to turn our attention to
other, more productive fronts.” In suggesting other fronts Raspberry notes that “… part of our
present-day reality is that colorblindness has not been enough to bring us to equality -- not even
to fundamental fairness. Why? For a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's enough simply to change
22
23
Ibid., page 53.
William Raspberry, “Phase 2 Of Equality”, Opinion Letter, Washington Post, October 18, 1999, page A19.
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 12
the rules. Once major league baseball went colorblind, it stopped being necessary to handpick
the Jackie Robinsons … The pool was there, available and exceptionally well-qualified. All it
took was to open the door. But despite our fondness for sports analogies, not everything works
that way. Open the door to college or nontraditional jobs, and inherited disadvantage can make it
harder to walk through.” He concludes by stating that the “effect may look and feel a lot like the
effect of active discrimination -- and because it does, the temptation is to treat it the way we
treated color-based denial of opportunity. But it is different, and it requires different remedies.”24
I assert that among the reasons for finding different remedies are the following circumstances:
1.
Most forms of discrimination arising from aware racism and sexism have been eliminated
or are clearly sanctioned by laws, Presidential Executive orders, and court decisions;
Most whites and men associate racism and sexism with the aware forms and are generally
unaware of their subtle racist or sexist attitudes;
Because most people are unaware of their subtle racist or sexist attitudes, and are
genuinely against aware racism and sexism, they will often react negatively and
defensively if they are accused of being racist or sexist;
The plethora of work practices and cultural norms arising from subtle racist and sexist
attitudes are woven into the fabric of an organization’s status quo;
Because they are woven into the fabric of an organization’s status quo they are rarely
noticed much less questioned by those in the majority and cannot always be clearly
articulated by those in the minority;
In addition, because discriminatory work practices and cultural norms are woven into the
fabric of an organization’s status quo, the true barriers for both blacks, other minorities,
and women is not an organization’s glass ceiling but its entire structure.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
I further assert that given these circumstances, any program that focuses on hiring or promoting
people primarily on the basis of race or sex is likely to run into resistance over time. Conversely,
if the workplace is ever to truly reflect the diversity of race and gender of American society, an
approach must be found that can change the work practices and cultures of organizations. This
must be done in a way that does not alienate whites and males while significantly improving the
opportunities and participation of minorities and women.
To accomplish the above, this paper proposes that affirmative action be replaced by affirmative
remedies based on the following criteria:
1.
Provide assistance and/or opportunities and create changes that can benefit all persons
regardless of race, sex, national origin, or other circumstances of birth;
Do so in a way that encourages and rewards excellence of achievement; and
Concentrate on activities that will be seen as strengthening the ability of the affected
organization to grow and prosper while having a positive effect on the careers of persons
from groups that have historically been discriminated against.
2.
3.
While a number of affirmative remedies can be taken that meet the above criteria, this paper
offers the following three approaches:
24
Ibid.
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
1.
2.
3.
February 10, 2000
Page 13
View talent affirmatively;
Affirmative development; and
Initiate and build on continuous small wins.
View Talent Affirmatively
The concept of viewing talent affirmatively is described in a USA Today editorial as follows:25
When the tradition-bound owners of the National Football League open their annual draft
of top college stars Saturday, they will commit what until very recently was viewed in
their circle as an unnatural act. They'll scramble over each other to hire talented young
black men to run their teams on the field … In that lies a lesson that extends far beyond
the NFL. Like minorities in other fields historically dominated by whites, black
quarterbacks have been deprived opportunities by employers' set notions about what it
takes to do a given job. In the staid NFL, owners, general managers and coaches were
wedded to a cookie-cutter quarterback image: tall, slow-footed, almost always white and
equipped mostly to drop straight back and whip the ball downfield. Odd as it may sound,
the ability to run was long seen as a liability. In colleges as well as in the pros, fast
athletic black quarterbacks commonly were shunted off to be running backs or receivers,
stereotyped as entertainers, not leaders or managers. If the flaw in that reasoning is
obvious this weekend to football fans, the same flaw is anything but obvious in the
workplace today. Blacks and women are routinely denied opportunity not because they
lack skills that could improve a business, but because white men who control hiring and
promotion decisions are, stuck on a stereotype. They hire what's familiar, and that's more
white men … The solution to this is outreach - stretching beyond the familiar circles in
search of talent … The benefit is the same one some NFL teams will reap this weekend:
The ability to be stronger competitors.
An affirmative talent approach requires, at minimum, the following three steps:
1.
2.
3.
Identify the full range of skills required for a person to be successful in a position;
Prioritize those skills on the basis of the competing requirements and strategic goals for
the position and not just the traditional view of the position;
Engage in outreach to identify talent outside of the familiar circles of talent. Done
properly this may locate new sources of white males as well as minorities and females
and will not “water down” job requirements or offer positions to less qualified applicants.
Affirmative Talent Admissions
Affirmative remedies in college admissions can affect the size and quality of the pool of
potential qualified employees from which businesses can choose. Hence, increasing the number
of minority college enrollees and graduates does have an indirect affect on potential affirmative
employment remedies. Seen in this light, affirmative remedies at the college level should focus
on increasing the number and percentage of minority college graduates and not just the number
25
“Affirmative Talent”, Editorial, USA Today, April 16, 1999, page 14A.
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 14
of minorities admitted to colleges. As noted earlier, much of the current debate over whether
reverse discrimination is occurring at selective colleges and universities is the result of some
minorities being admitted with lower SAT scores than whites who are rejected. An alternative
approach for admitting minority students, proposed by Clifford Adelman,26 avoids the problems
caused by relying on SAT scores.27
Adelman states that the justification for using SAT scores in admissions decisions is that they are
a decent predictor of first-year college grades. He points out, however, that this has nothing to
do with the principal goal of students or their families, which is graduation, and that it does not
address the primary goal of state legislators for whom the primary performance measure of state
colleges and universities is graduation rates. Adelman, referring to the work done on Stereotype
threat by Claude Steele, says it is time to stop talking about the SAT since the only thing that
“SAT-jabber” has accomplished is to manipulate minority sensibilities, without doing anything
substantive for the mass of minority students.
As an alternative to the SAT, Adelman offers an approach for identifying superior talent that is
based on an analysis of high-school and college transcripts of the generation that went to college
between 1982 and 1993. This analysis shows that getting one step beyond Algebra II in highschool mathematics doubles a student’s chances of completing a bachelor's degree. The same
analysis shows that 72 per cent of African American students who got beyond Algebra II, took
Advanced Placement courses, and subsequently attended a four-year college or university earned
bachelor's degrees. For Latino students, the percentage was 79 per cent. As Adelman points out,
“No jiggling or juggling with SAT scores, class rank, or grades can accomplish those results.”
Adelman’s conclusion is that the “principal tasks should be to provide minority students with
curricular opportunities, to insure that minority students are not "tracked" away from those
opportunities, and to secure family and peer support for academic effort.” He also proposes that
the metrics of these tasks should replace the SAT score as the “principal propaganda” tool in
discussions about college admissions and that the SAT should be replaced as the criterion of
institutional quality. The new criterion of institutional quality should be the percentages of
entering students who have reached the pre-calculus level in high school, have taken three
laboratory-science courses, and have demonstrated competence in a language other than English.
According to Adelman, this might establish an alternative symbolism that reflects what
education is really about, and what it should do for all students.
The essence of Adelman’s approach is to find indicators that can predict success without relying
on standardized tests. This is directly relevant to work policies designed to reduce the underrepresentation of blacks in the work place and women in science and math oriented positions.
Affirmative Talent Hiring/Promotion
An example of an affirmative talent hiring/promotion approach is visible in the process used to
hire the Director of Facilities Management at the University of Cincinnati a number of years ago.
26
Clifford Adelman is a senior research analyst with the U.S. Department of Education. He is the author, most
recently, of the Education Department report "Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns,
and Bachelor's Degree Attainment."
27
Clifford Adelman, “Why Can't We Stop Talking About the SAT?”, Opinion Letter, Chronicle of Higher
Education, November 5, 1999, page B4.
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 15
Based on the credentials of prior Facilities Management Directors, an engineering degree was
considered a necessary requirement for anyone seeking this position. The University was also
interested in hiring someone who could make the Facilities Management department a more
customer-friendly and efficient organization. However, given the traditional requirement of an
engineering degree, a number of potential candidates, with strong customer service skills, would
never have had their applications seriously considered.
As with most employment searches, an initial step in this search involved defining the required
and desired skills needed to successfully perform the job. In the case of this position, however, a
decision was made to start with the equivalent of “zero based” qualifications. Translated, the
process involved identifying the required and desired skills with only limited reference to past
documents that outlined the skills needed to perform this position. The process began by
identifying the key challenges facing a Director of Facilities Management and the key
institutional goals for the Department. The process continued with a prioritization of the
challenges and goals for the Director and the Department. This process revealed that the
Director needed to have exceptionally strong people skills to successfully interact with and
manage a very diverse group of people. More specifically, the Director of Facilities
Management needed to be able to successfully interact with people ranging from:
1.
2.
3.
Entry level groundskeepers with high school degrees to;
Maintenance and construction staffs with engineering degrees to;
Faculty members, deans, and officers of the University with PhDs who were worldrenowned in their field.
The Director also needed to be able to manage predominately black housekeeping and grounds
keeping staffs and predominately white maintenance, construction, and planning staffs.
While the “traditionalists” (those individuals intent on making an engineering degree a necessary
requirement) lobbied hard for an engineering degree as a necessary requirement, a decision was
finally reached to make an engineering degree a desired requirement. This was done because
none of the critical challenges or goals facing the Director of the Department seemed to demand
specific engineering knowledge. Given the above demands, it was decided that in addition to
being goal-oriented, and self-motivated, the most important skills required of a successful
candidate were:
1.
2.
3.
A strong commitment to customer service;
The ability to communicate with, motivate and manage a highly diverse workforce; and
The ability to successfully communicate with faculty, deans, and officers of the
University.
As the search began, the traditionalists remained convinced that it was a mistake to hire someone
without an engineering degree even though he or she possessed the other essential traits. The
traditionalists were also ready to say “I told you so” if the new Director failed. However, within
a year after the Director was hired, many of the traditionalists admitted that the person who was
hired, who did not have an engineering degree, was arguably the most effective Facilities
Management Director in over two decades.
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 16
While some people reading this description might assume that the standards were changed to hire
a black person or woman into this position, the reality is that the person hired by this affirmative
talent approach was a white male. As noted earlier, the goal of viewing talent affirmatively is
not to “water down” job requirements, or admission standards, but to stretch beyond familiar
sources in search of talent.
Affirmative Development
Engaging in a process of viewing talent affirmatively can assist in overcoming the effects of past
and current discriminatory practices. However, it is not sufficient to end the disparities that
cause blacks and women to be under represented in a variety of venues and positions. It is not
sufficient because the pool of well-qualified blacks and women is not yet large enough to enable
them to be represented in non-traditional positions in proportion to their numbers in the general
population. Yet creating this pool of talent in a way that will cause it to become self-renewing
requires a process and approach that can best be described as “affirmative development”. The
term, “affirmative development”, was recently used in a Chronicle of Higher Education article
about efforts being promoted by the College Board’s Minority-Achievement Committee.28 This
Committee issued a study that found that unless African American, Latino, and American Indian
students are guided through troubled academic waters using a process called "affirmative
development" a trend of underachievement will continue. It should be noted that unless
affirmative development is practiced during a person’s education years, it is unlikely that the
pool of minority and female candidates for positions in the workforce will ever grow
substantially. While the College Board study focuses on assisting students, the concept of
affirmative development is also relevant in the work environment.
An example of an affirmative development program at the employment level is the housekeeper
to electrical maintenance worker program at the University of Cincinnati (UC). The motivation
for this program was that historically the housekeeping department at UC was almost totally
black with a high percentage of females, while the maintenance department was almost totally
white and all male.
The opportunity to begin to change this state of affairs began a number of years ago when the
Facilities Management department began a series of re-lamping projects as a way to reduce the
University’s electrical costs. To engage in the massive re-lamping effort contemplated by the
University, the Facilities Management department would need to hire a number of temporary
workers to help the University’s electricians change the old electrical ballasts to new more
efficient ones, while continuing to meet the daily maintenance needs of the University. After
discussing a number of possible sources of temporary labor, a decision was made to provide
housekeepers with outstanding attendance and performance records with an opportunity to learn
a new skill by training them to assist the electricians in changing the lighting ballasts. This
program has evolved into one in which efforts are made to involve housekeepers in assisting the
electricians each time a return on investment (ROI) project designed to reduce electrical utility
costs is undertaken.
Will Weissert, “Report Cites Racial Gap in Student Performance”, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 29,
1999, Page A42.
28
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 17
Housekeepers who complete the training and perform well during these ROI projects are given
an opportunity to compete for vacant entry-level electrician maintenance worker positions. This
program has operated for approximately nine years. The result of this program has been a rise in
the percentage of former housekeepers, most of whom are black, into the electrical trade from
virtually 0 to almost 67%. Unfortunately, virtually no females have benefited from this program.
For this reason, this program is continuing to evolve to address the fact that it did not increase
the number of women electricians. To this end discussions are currently in progress to identify
an approach that can increase the number of female electricians.
While it may not be possible to replicate this specific program at other institutions, its underlying
principles can be adopted by other institutions. The underlying principles are:
1.
2.
3.
Identify a problem, like the historic divide between a trade that pays high wages and is
populated almost exclusively by white males and a trade within the same organization
that pays low wages and is populated primarily by minority and female workers.
Identify a solution that enables blacks and women to have upward mobility without
relying on race or sex based solutions. This can be done using an intern program and/or
other mechanism that enables persons within the organization in lower paying or entry
level trades or job classifications to learn the skills and compete for vacancies in the
higher paying trade or job classifications.
Make the program race and sex neutral by using it as an official route for internal
promotions and actively recruit white males to fill vacancies that occur in the trade or job
classifications that pay the lower wages and have historically been staffed by minority
and/or female workers.
Initiate and Build on Continuous Small Wins
Viewing talent affirmatively and engaging in affirmative development efforts are all necessary
approaches that must exist if this country is ever to overcome the affects of past and current
discriminatory practices. However, while they are necessary approaches they may not be
sufficient to end, once and for all, many of the disparities that cause blacks and women to be
under-represented in a variety of venues and positions. To accomplish this, institutions can use
an approach advocated by Debra E. Meyerson and Joyce K. Fletcher for breaking the glass
ceiling for women.29 This strategy, referred to as “small wins,”30 is designed to create
incremental changes aimed at biases so entrenched in a system that they are not even noticed
until they are gone.31 The authors’ formula for implementing this strategy involves six steps:32
1.
Acknowledge that there is a problem, like women leaving in alarming numbers.
Debra E. Meyerson and Joyce K. Fletcher, “A Modest Manifesto for Shattering the Glass Ceiling”, Harvard
Business Review, January – February 2000, pages 127 – 136.
30
According to a footnote in the Meyerson and Fletcher article the small-wins approach to change was developed by
Karl Weick and is discussed in “Small Wins: Redefining the Scale of Social Problems,” American Psychologist,
1984.
31
Debra E. Meyerson and Joyce K. Fletcher, “A Modest Manifesto for Shattering the Glass Ceiling”, Harvard
Business Review, January – February 2000, page 128.
32
Ibid., page 132.
29
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
February 10, 2000
Page 18
Engage in a diagnosis of the problem using one-on-one interviews and focus groups. The
purpose of this step is to uncover practices and beliefs in the company’s culture. For
example what activities are valued and what are the assumptions about competence?
Once the initial diagnosis is completed, have managers identify cultural patterns and their
consequences. For example, what practices affect men and women differently and why
or which ones have unintended consequences for the business?
The next stage is “holding up the mirror” and represents the first part of developing a new
shared narrative in the organization. During this stage change agents should discuss the
results of the analysis done in the previous stage with different people.
The next stage is designing small wins. It is critical during this stage that the managers
guiding the process keep the number and scope of initiatives relatively limited and
strategically targeted.
Finally, the managers and other change agents involved in the process should remind the
organization that a single experiment should not be seen as an end in itself. Instead each
small win is a trial intervention and a probe for learning designed to slowly make the
system better.
However, if this is to be an effective strategy for blacks and other minorities, as well as for
women, it must be accompanied by policies designed to create an atmosphere of trust. This
conclusion grows out of Dr. Steele’s research on Stereotype threat, presented earlier in this
paper. As noted earlier, Dr. Steele concluded that the under-performance of black students might
be rooted less in self-doubt than in social mistrust. Based on this finding he suggests that
education policy might fruitfully shift its focus toward fostering racial trust in the schooling
situation. However, the mistrust identified by Dr. Steele does not end when a black stops being a
student. In fact, my own experience and the experience of many adult African Americans with
whom I have spoken is that uncertainty over the true motivation of the criticism of one’s work is
also a challenge in the work environment. Dr. Steele’s research found that neither straight
feedback nor feedback preceded by the "niceness" of a cushioning statement was trusted by the
black students. They saw these criticisms as probably biased and were, therefore, less motivated
than white students to improve their essays. In fact, while white students took criticism of their
work at face value, black students reacted to the possibility that the criticism was motivated by
negative stereotypes about their group as much as by the quality of their work. Hence, the
ambiguity over whether race was a factor was sufficient to make the black students’ world
insecure. It is important to note that this occurred quite apart from whatever actual
discrimination may have been experienced. Fortunately, Dr. Steele’s work revealed a way to be
critical across the racial divide. Specifically, state that high standards are being used (this signals
that the criticism reflects standards rather than race), and that your review of their work leads
you to believe that they can meet those standards (this signals that you do not view them
stereotypically). Of critical importance is that this feedback should not be faked. Please note,
this approach is consistent with good teaching and management, especially since high standards
should be an inherent part of critical feedback which should be given with the belief that the
recipient can reach those standards.33
Claude M. Steele, “Thin Ice “Stereotype Threat” and Black College Students”, The Atlantic Monthly, August
1999, page 53.
33
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 19
Returning to the “small wins” approach, Meyerson and Fletcher recount a number of success
stories in which their small wins strategy has helped to improve both organizations and
opportunities for women. One story involves an international scientific research institute.34
“The institute, which produces new agricultural technologies for farmers, had a strong
cultural norm of rewarding individual achievement. …The norm meant that support work
by secretaries and technicians, as well as by scientists and professionals in departments
like biotechnology and economics, was often ignored.
Paradoxically, top-level managers at the institute spoke enthusiastically about the value
of teamwork and asserted that success was a group, not an individual, product. In fact,
the organization planned to move to a team-based structure because senior managers
considered it an imperative for addressing complex cross-functional challenges. But in
the everyday workings of the organization, no one paid much heed to supporting
contributors. The stars were individual “heroes.”
The undervaluation of support work was an issue that affected many women because they
were more likely to be in staff positions or scientific roles that were perceived as support
disciplines. In addition, women more often took on support work because they were
expected to do so or because they felt it was critical to a project’s success. … Yet they
were reluctant to stop because the costs of not doing it were clear to them. Without it,
information would flow less easily, people would miss deadlines, more crises would
erupt, and teams would break down. As we talked with them, women began to recognize
the value of their efforts, and they gave them a name: “invisible work.” … naming the
problem had a striking effect. It turned out that invisible work wasn’t just a problem for
women. Men and women started talking about how the lack of value placed on invisible
work was related to much larger systemic patterns. … Stemming from these informal
discussions, a narrative about the importance of invisible work began to spread
throughout the organization.
For senior managers who saw the link between invisible work and their goal of moving to
a team-based structure, the challenge was to find ways to make invisible work visible –
and to ensure it was valued and more widely shared by men and women.
A task force on the topic proposed a new organizationwide evaluation system that would
gather input from peers and direct reports – people to whom an employee’s invisible
work is visible. Although that step seemed insignificant to many, it was approved and
launched.
Several years later, people say that the institute is a different place. The first small win –
the new evaluation process – gave way to others, such as a new process to increase
information flow up, down, and sideways; new criteria for team leaders that emphasize
facilitation rather than direction; and new norms about tapping expertise, no matter where
Debra E. Meyerson and Joyce K. Fletcher, “A Modest manifesto for Shattering the Glass Ceiling”, Harvard
Business Review, January – February 2000, pages 133 and 134.
34
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 20
it resides in the hierarchy. …Today both men and women say there is a stronger sense of
fairness. And senior managers say that the systemic changes brought about by the smallwins strategy were central to the institute’s successful move to a team-based structure.”
Conclusion
This paper began by attempting to answer five basic questions. In answering these questions this
paper concludes with the following observations:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Aware racism and sexism may not be widespread. However, subtle racist and sexist
attitudes are widespread, affect the vast majority of America’s population, regardless of
race and sex, and are generally unknown to the practitioners of the attitudes;
Racist and sexist attitudes that lead to acts of discrimination, can be communicated on a
non-verbal level;
Racist and sexist attitudes can create a Competency Paradox. This Paradox can cause
blacks and/or women hired or promoted into traditionally white and/or male roles/
positions to be viewed as incompetent until proven competent. Conversely whites, and
especially white males, hired, or promoted into any role/position are viewed as competent
until proven incompetent;
Discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and ethnicity is still widespread in America even
though it has been illegal for over thirty years, and has real and negative impacts on the
ability of blacks and other non-white groups, as well as women, to obtain jobs and
promotions on the basis of unbiased evaluations of individual merit;
Because most people are unaware of their subtle racist or sexist attitudes, and are
genuinely opposed to aware racism and sexism, they will often react negatively and
defensively if they are accused of being racist or sexist;
For blacks who are committed to doing well in a “traditionally white environment” a
phenomenon called Stereotype threat tends to impair their performance in predominantly
white settings and on standardized tests. Similar factors are at work in limiting the
number of female candidates for positions in mathematics and science; and
For those blacks and women who react to Stereotype threat by disidentifying with the
values of the dominant white male culture, they tend to refuse to even try to compete in
areas seen as the province of white males.
In response to the above observations I also conclude that:
1.
2.
It is likely that Americans, when faced with evidence of continued discriminatory
practices will continue to support limited affirmative action solutions for as long as
discriminatory practices can be documented as occurring; but
An indefinite extension of affirmative action programs, which were originally designed
as temporary initiatives, to deal with the legacy of past discrimination and the affects of
current subtle forms of discrimination, is likely to lead to an increasingly bitter debate
over both the effectiveness and legality of affirmative action programs.
To counter the likelihood of an increasingly bitter debate over the effectiveness and legality of
affirmative action programs, this paper proposes a set of affirmative remedies built upon the
following criteria:
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
1.
2.
3.
February 10, 2000
Page 21
Provide assistance and/or opportunities for all persons fairly and impartially regardless of
race, sex, national origin, or other circumstances of birth;
Encourage and reward excellence of achievement; and
Increase the pool of qualified persons and opportunities for advancement of qualified
persons from groups that have historically been discriminated against in a manner that is
consistent with the first two criteria.
This paper has also proposed three affirmative remedies that meet the above criteria and has
provided an example of an approach or program for each of the affirmative remedies. These
affirmative remedies are:
1.
2.
3.
View talent affirmatively;
Affirmative development; and
Initiate and build on continuous small wins.
The approach used on any given campus or by any given employer to deal with the effects of
past and current discriminatory practices may vary. However, it is proposed that the goals for
each of them should be the same. These goals are:
1.
2.
To rely less on solutions based on color or sex based denial of opportunity and more on
solutions that concentrate on finding innovative approaches to increasing the pool of
qualified African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and women to take on nontraditional positions and roles for these groups; and
To use an approach of small continuous changes in organizational work practices and
customs to improve the environment and opportunities for blacks and other minorities
and women.
Glass Ceilings and Affirmative Action
February 10, 2000
Page 22
RESOURCES
Affirmative Action Timeline by Americans United for Affirmative Action (AUAA) at
www.auaa.org/timeline/index.html.
“Affirmative Talent”, Editorial, USA Today, April 16, 1999.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Briefing Paper at www.aclu.org/library/pbp17.html.
Claude M. Steele, “Thin Ice “Stereotype Threat” and Black College Students”, The Atlantic
Monthly, August 1999.
Claudine Chamberlain, ABC News, “Roots of Racism Revealed”, http://204.202.137.112/
sections/living/InYourHead/allinyourhead_11.html.
Clifford Adelman, “Why Can't We Stop Talking About the SAT?”, Opinion Letter, Chronicle of
Higher Education, November 5, 1999.
Debra E. Meyerson and Joyce K. Fletcher, “A Modest Manifesto for Shattering the Glass
Ceiling”, Harvard Business Review, January – February 2000.
Patricia B. Campbell and Jennifer N. Storo, “ Girls Are … Boys Are: Myths, Stereotypes &
Gender Differences” www.tiac.net/users/ckassoc/Stereo.pdf.
Roberto Suro and Michael A. Fletcher, “75 Percent of Military’s Minorities See Racism”, The
Washington Post, November 23, 1999, page A01.
Robin Wilson, “An M.I.T Professor’s Suspicion of Bias Leads to a New Movement for
Academic Women”, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 3, 1999, page A16.
Studies reported by the American Psychological Association, http://www.apa.org/ppo/colorblind/
findings.html.
The Coalition Against Bigotry and Bias, “Affirmative Action Myths vs. Facts”, http://
bbcc.ctc.edu/~webb/cabb.htm.
Will Weissert, “Report Cites Racial Gap in Student Performance”, Chronicle of Higher
Education, October 29, 1999
William Raspberry, “Phase 2 Of Equality”, Opinion Letter, Washington Post, October 18, 1999.