DiversityInc
Event Report
The panels
ward
Connerly
vs.
What is the value
of affirmative action?
Are we ready for a so-called
“colorblind society”?
52 DiversityInc
Reprinted by permission of DiversityInc
Proponents
SamAli
Diversity
Anti-affirmative-action activist Ward Connerly wants to ban
the use of race- and gender-based affirmative action in college
admissions and hiring.
DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti leads a panel of civil-rights
experts and lawyers refuting him at our March event.
From Left: Ward Connerly President of the American Civil Rights Institute; Luke Visconti Chief Executive Officer, DiversityInc; Dr. Ella Bell Professor,
Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, and Founder of ASCENT; Weldon H. Latham Senior Partner, Jackson Lewis; Lora Fong Corporate Counsel,
Salesforce.com; Gilbert Casellas Former Head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Reprinted by permission of DiversityInc
DiversityInc 2011 53
DiversityInc
Event Report
The Panelists
Luke Visconti
ince the term “affirmative action” was first uttered by President John F.
Kennedy in 1961, it has been the subject of intense debate and controversy.
That debate continued at DiversityInc’s learning event in Washington,
D.C., in March when anti-affirmative-action leader Ward Connerly took
to the stage and argued that the government should not be in the business
“of picking winners and losers based on factors such as skin color.”
Weldon H. Latham
Senior Partner,
Jackson Lewis
Gilbert Casellas
Former Head of the
Equal Employment
Opportunity
Commission
Connerly told the audience of senior diversity-management executives
that he believes affirmative action is a form of racism and that people can
achieve success without preferential treatment in college enrollment or in
employment.
Dr. Ella Bell
Connerly, president of the American Civil Rights Institute, who is
best known for leading the state-to-state effort to roll back affirmative
action, described himself as a crusader for “a colorblind society” and
argued that dismantling affirmative action will force the government to
treat all its citizens equally regardless of their racial background.
Corporate Counsel,
Salesforce.com
“We’re not trying to end all
affirmative action. We’re trying to
end the practice of the government
making distinctions between its
citizens and preferring some, by giving extra points. That disadvantages
one over the other,” said Connerly.
“I’ve always believed that if everyone has an equal chance to compete
and if we believe in the view that
we’re all created equally by the
good Lord, then diversity will be the
outcome.”
Responding to a critique from the
audience that he misleads voters,
Connerly said, “I really take exception with the notion that we’re trying
to mislead people, that we’re being
disingenuous. If there is disingenuity there, it’s mutually shared by our
opponents as well as us.”
Visconti then took Connerly to
task for billing the initiative to end
affirmative action as “a civil-rights
cause,” noting that thousands of
voters have been duped into signing petitions and voting in favor of
measures over the years because
they’re typically described as bans
on discrimination instead of attacks
on programs that help women
and people from traditionally
54 DiversityInc
Chief Executive Officer,
DiversityInc
Professor, Tuck School
of Business, Dartmouth
College, and Founder
of ASCENT
Lora Fong
Ward Connerly
President of the
American Civil Rights
Institute
civil-rights initiative in Michigan.
It was disingenuous. It was not the
proper way of doing things. When
Americans are confronted with the
choice of being fair or unfair, they
overwhelmingly want to be fair
because we know we have a legacy
and we have to move forward. That
is where we have to focus on the
solution … and that solution is affirmative action. In utopia, we may not
need it anymore. But none of us will
live that long. None of us.”
Connerly explained that he had
underrepresented groups.
“If I asked you to vote for a
civil-rights initiative, would you
vote for it? Yes. That was the
title of the law that was passed in
Michigan that was against affirmative action,” Visconti said. “I respect
you for being here and I respect
the civil dialogue we’ve had here
but I disagree with you on that
point. The language on all these
bills is misleading. The ramp up
was misleading. Black people were
hired to hand out petitions for the
Promotions Into
First Management Job
47.9%
2011 DiversityInc Top 50
2006 DIversityInc Top 50
36%
38.1%
National Management (EEOC)
10.4% 10.1%
WOMEN
BLACKS
7.1%
7.6% 7.3% 6.8%
LATINOS
9.1%
6.3% 4.9%
ASIANS
Reprinted by permission of DiversityInc
an uncle who often reminded him
when he was a young child that
“even the smallest pancake has two
sides.”
“It’s in that spirit that I’ve always
tried to—unsuccessfully in the
media’s eyes—understand those
two sides,” Connerly said. “At times
it seems like our world is coming
unraveled … and we have a very difficult time [uniting] around anything.
One of the reasons for that is we’re
very hesitant to venture beyond our
own comfort zone. Believe me, it is
somewhat intimidating to venture
into an audience where you know
that probably everyone has a strong
disagreement with your own view.”
Going one step further, Connerly
told the audience he does not think
people should be classified on the
basis of race at all. He said, “I just
don’t think the government should
be in that business of making us
check boxes and classifying us like a
bunch of animals.”
ProAffirmativeAction
Addressing Connerly, Weldon H.
Latham, senior partner at Jackson
Lewis and noted civil-rights attorney, said that during the course of
his career, he had “written more
articles responding to you than
probably any other subject.”
“I would love to sit down and
chat with you because I don’t
understand how you landed on this
earth,” Latham said. “We’d love
to have a level playing field. We’d
love to take away preferences. But
you jump way ahead. You want to
fight hard to eliminate the solution
before you eliminate the problem.”
Latham said that because past
presidents have “devalued the
Office of Civil Rights and held back
on enforcing the law,” today, much
of the work around affirmative
The affirmative-action
panel, led by DiversityInc
CEO Luke Visconti,
spoke on the second
day of the DiversityInc
March event following
anti-affirmative-action
advocate Ward Connerly.
action is being championed by corporate America, which recognizes
the value of diversity and inclusion.
“Companies stepped up and said
we have to do it, not because we’re
nice guys but because we like to
win,” Latham said.
Gilbert Casellas, former head of
the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission and former chief diversity officer at Dell, No. 30 in The 2011
DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for
Diversity®, told Connerly that his
drive to end affirmative action was
“divorced from historical reality and
social context.”
“You are a soft-spoken guy and
speak in a reasonable voice, but
unfortunately those views are also
espoused by folks at the fringe of
our society and they espouse them
in very hateful ways,” Casellas said.
“Research demonstrates that at the
retail individual level, there is still
unconscious bias … and so we have
to do things to overcome that. We
have to take affirmative steps to
make sure that those unconscious
biases are not driving us to certain
places. At the wholesale level, at
the structural level, there are still
disparities. They happen today
and continue to exist, so we can’t
divorce ourselves from the reality.
Those disparities … can’t be allowed
in a democratic society to persist.
And that is the role of government:
to equalize it.”
Lora Fong, corporate counsel at
Salesforce.com, told Connerly that
Watch the full video at
www.DiversityInc.com/event-videos
Reprinted by permission of DiversityInc
DiversityInc 2011 55
DiversityInc
Event Report
while she appreciates the goal
of one day living in “a colorblind
society,” she does not think she
will live to see that day during
her lifetime. In the interim, she
said it is imperative to safeguard
the rules currently in place that
benefit disadvantaged and underrepresented groups.
“There are real human costs
with opportunities that are lost …
We can bandy about statistics but
it really only takes one lost genius
who missed an opportunity to
create a deficit for this country,”
Fong said. “I appreciate the goal of
having a colorblind society. It is not
where we are now, so what are we
going to do about it? In the interim
and as far as corporate America
goes … who are we going to hire if
the government doesn’t perpetuate
and move toward this compelling
state interest of making sure our
public education system and our
government workers are populated
with diversity? This is supposed to
be a government of the people, by
the people, for the people. I didn’t
make those words up, but they
resonate with me and I’m sure they
resonate with many of you.”
ANewDefinition
For her part, Dr. Ella Bell, professor at Tuck School of Business at
Dartmouth College and founder of
ASCENT, said she thinks it is time
to redesign, reframe and rethink
what is meant by the term “affirmative action” because the issue
is so much broader today than
simply Black and white.
“The historical moment when
affirmative action was created is
not here anymore,” Dr. Bell said.
“It is a very different historical
moment. We need to design an
intervention that will fit this particular historical moment. When
we think about affirmative action,
the term just seems to get everyone crazy. You can’t use that term
anymore. It’s not effective. When
we think about affirmative action,
we don’t think about Hispanics.
We don’t think about Asians or
people with disabilities. Why?
Because affirmative action in most
people’s minds is Black and white.
This is no longer a Black-and-white
world. You want to be competitive as a company. You cannot be
competitive if you just think Black
and white.”
CivilDialogue
Why did DiversityInc invite
Connerly? The idea originated with
DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti,
who wanted to show the audience
what the opposition is thinking.
Connerly, who said he respects
DiversityInc, agreed to appear
if he could speak alone, rather
than be part of a panel. The panel,
which consisted of Visconti, three
legal experts on civil rights, and a
professor, refuted his arguments.
Connerly decided to stay and listen
to the panel and rebut their arguments from the audience floor.
According to DiversityInc’s
feedback survey from the attendants, Connerly and the panel
were the most highly rated segments of the two-day event.
Connerly said his staff strongly advised him not to accept
DiversityInc’s invitation to speak
at the conference. “They said it’s
like subjecting yourself to a firing
squad with everyone having a
high-powered weapon and unlimited ammunition, but I rejected
that counsel,” he said. DI
read more
For more on recruitment and retention, visit
www.DiversityIncBestPractices.com
56 DiversityInc
Reprinted by permission of DiversityInc
What Is
Affirmative
Action?
The definition of affirmative action
under Executive Order 11246 (41
CFR §60-2.10) is:
A set of specific results-oriented
procedures to which an organization
commits itself to apply every good-faith
effort to:
eliminate disparity in hiring and
promoting of groups
eliminate under-utilization
ensure equal opportunity
identify barriers that interfere with
EEO to all employees
The intent of affirmative action has
been to bring about equal opportunities in employment as well as
business contracts, housing and education. It is not only a remedy toward
past and present discrimination but
is used to prevent future discrimination, assisting in attaining an inclusive
society.
There is no requirement of preferential
treatment (“goals” vs. “quota”) except
in situations of intentional discrimination and under a court order.
Who has benefited most from affirmative action?
The answer will surprise you and
explain why the practice is still beneficial.
Debunking the
‘AffirmativeAction
Myth’
By Bob Gregg
Who Benefits
From Affirmative
Action?
Virtually everyone has benefited. EEO/
AA has actually benefited white men
more than any other group. This may
come as a surprise to those who have
only focused on the “surface issues,”
which are hyped by the press and politicians. The reality is that both overtly and
under the surface, EEO/AA rules have
led to the hiring and upward mobility of
millions of white men.
Affirmative-action rules have a great
focus on veterans and veterans with disabilities. The only consistently ongoing
“preference points” or hiring “preference” systems in the country are for veterans. “Veterans points” have been in
effect since the end of World War II and
are widely used by public and private
employers. The overwhelming majority of those benefiting from veterans
preferences have been white and male.
Millions of white men have been passed
ahead of others who scored higher in
applicant ratings (including many women
and “minority” candidates) and were
given jobs, instead of the “top qualified”
applicants being hired.
The most significant change brought
about by the EEO/AA laws was publication of job announcements. Until the
“Affirmative action’s purpose was not
mid-1960s’ passage of EEO/AA laws,
to give unqualified people special rights
the majority of mid- and upper-level job
but rather give people who were, in fact,
openings were not published. They were
qualified and eager and ambitious the
secrets, known only to insiders. Unless
opportunity to enter into fields that had
you were “in the know,” you would not
been denied them solely by virtue of the
have information to even apply. Until then,
color of their skin or their gender …”
virtually all of those jobs went to white
wrote Sen. William S. Cohen of Maine,
men, but not all white men were considformer secretary of transportation.
ered appropriate management material.
Gen. Colin Powell stated, “When equal
Italian, Polish, Irish, Jewish, South Eastern
performance doesn’t result in equal
European, Middle Eastern and Catholic
advancement, then something is wrong
workers and the great numbers of lowerwith the system, and our leaders have an
income white people were not generally
obligation to fix it. If a history of dispart of the “in group” or “country-club
crimination has made it difficult for certain
set.” These people held mostly lower-payAmericans to meet standards, it is only
level jobs. However, after the EEO/AA laws
fair to provide temporary means to help
forced companies to publicly advertise
them catch up and compete on equal
management positions, these groups
terms. Affirmative action in the
began to learn about, apply for
best sense promotes equal
and move into the upper
consideration, not reverse
levels of employment. The
Bob Gregg,
discrimination.”
implementation of EEO/
partner in Boardman
Job discrimination is
AA enabled millions of
Law Firm,
grounded in prejudice
these white men to
shares his roundup of
diversity-related legal
and exclusion. Affirmative
apply for and get jobs,
issues. He can be
action is an effort to
achieving upward mobilreached at rgregg@
overcome that treatment
ity that had previously
boardmanlawfirm.
through inclusion. The logic
been denied.
com
of affirmative action is no
The “Affirmative action
different than the logic of treatis only for women and
ing a nutritional deficiency with
‘minorities’” myth is simply a
vitamin supplements. For a healthy
myth. Scratch below the surface
person, high doses of vitamins may be
and one finds that the positive effects
unnecessary or even harmful, but for a
of EEO/AA have been predominantly for
system that is out of balance, supplements
white, male job applicants and continue to
are an efficient way to restore balance.
benefit the entire society.
DiversityInc 2011 57
Reprinted by permission of DiversityInc