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EQUAL OPPORTUNITY: MYTHS & FACTS!
In recent years, equal
opportunity has been debated more intensely than at any
other time in its 35-year history. Many supporters view
diversity policies as a milestone, many opponents see it as
a millstone, and many others regard it as both or neither –
as a necessary, but imperfect, remedy for an intractable
social disease. In reality, the case against equal
opportunity is weak, resting, as it does so heavily, on
myth, manipulation, outright distortion and
misunderstanding.
MYTH 1: Equal opportunity is
preferential treatment
FACT: Equal opportunity
removes barriers that unfairly exclude women and people of
color. In so doing, it promotes equal opportunity for its
beneficiaries.
In the United States access
to the American Dream is often framed as a fair race in
which the swiftest runners win. Critics say we should
eliminate equal opportunity because it gives some runners an
unfair head start in an otherwise fair race.
What if we begin with the
observation that the lanes on the tract used by the runners
are fundamentally unequal? Some lanes are unobstructed
while others are virtually impassable. From this
perspective, we can see that policies that promote
inclusion, like equal opportunity, are designed to equalize
the conditions of a previously unfair race.
Meanwhile, those runners who
aren’t kept back by race, class, or gender discrimination
are privileged to run a race in which their ability to
compete is not impeded by any unwarranted arbitrary
barriers.
In this light, equal
opportunity represents nothing more than a set of policies
designed to remove the numerous impediments that litter the
lanes of those who are disadvantaged for reasons associated
with their racial, gender or class backgrounds.
MYTH 2: Equal opportunity is
a radical social policy out of step with American ideals.
FACT: Equal opportunity
does not represent a radical set of social policies. Nor
was it the brainchild of radical civil rights activists. In
fact, equal opportunity policies were developed by moderate
American politicians who sought to promote modest programs
designed to begin the process of dismantling contemporary
forms of institutional discrimination in the workplace, in
higher education, and with respect to public contracting.
Although the originating
document of equal opportunity was President Lyndon Johnson’s
Executive Order 11246, the policy was significantly expanded
in 1969 by President Richard Nixon and then Secretary of
Labor George Schultz. President George Bush also
enthusiastically signed the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which
formally endorsed the principle of equal opportunity. In
truth, equal opportunity programs have spanned nine
different presidential administrations—six Republican and
three Democratic. Thus, equal opportunity has traditionally
enjoyed the support of Republicans as well as Democrats.
MYTH 3: Equal opportunity is
no longer needed in America; and equal opportunity prevails
in the United States.
FACT: Equal opportunity
remains vital as a tool to offset the continuing
discriminatory obstacles faced by women and people of color
in the U.S.
Some critics suggest that
affirmative action has outlived its utility. Conceding that
these programs have effectively opened the doors of
opportunity to traditionally excluded participants, they
argue that these numbers can now be maintained without these
measures. In fact, in every instance where equal
opportunity has been withdrawn the participation level of
minorities and women has fallen drastically.
Despite decades of gradual
integration through affirmative measures, white males still
occupy most top paying jobs (including approximately 95% of
the Fortune 500 CEO positions, and continue to hold the
lions’ share of lucrative employment opportunities.
American women earn only 66 cents per hour for every dollar
a white man earns (for similar employment). College-educated
African-American women annually earn only $800 more per year
than white male high school graduates and $17,727 less than
college educated white men. Simply put, race and gender
still matter.
MYTH 4: Equal opportunity
constitutes the admission of under and unqualified students
in undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools,
FACT: Equal opportunity
programs are modest efforts to counter-balance the built in
biases that already exist in the admissions processes in
institutions of higher education. Without equal opportunity
the traditional admissions practices unwarrantedly favor the
members of historically privileged groups.
Equal opportunity does not
provide free entrance to unqualified women or people of
color. It is senseless to assert that someone was admitted
to a law school, for instance, “based only on the color of
their skin”. If admissions were offered regardless of
qualifications, our institutions would be completely
dysfunctional—filled with unqualified people. Law
schools—like other institutions that employ equal
opportunity policies—have no interest in bringing in
unqualified people. Instead, they use equal opportunity
because it allows them to identify qualified candidates
whose potential to succeed would otherwise be overlooked.
Opponents however like to
equate equal opportunity policies as undeserved hand-outs to
an “under-qualified and unmotivated” group of people, rather
than as policies designed to uncover the capabilities of
millions of Americans of all hues and genders.
MYTH 5: Equal opportunity
should be about class, not race.
FACT: While class remains
an extraordinarily significant factor in the lives of many
Americans, the fact is that racial bias affects women and
minorities of all backgrounds and cannot be addressed solely
through class-based measures. Race-conscious equal
opportunity action remains necessary to address race-based
obstacles that block the path to success of countless women
people of color of all classes.
The claim that race no longer
matters simply fails to square with the lived reality of
most people of color. Whether they are privileged, working
class or living in conditions of poverty, race remains a
significant factor that shapes access to everything from
social networking to jobs to health care to housing. Not
only does the “class not race” position fail to reflect the
role that race plays across class lines, it also fails to
reflect the role of racism in creating a racialized
underclass. Because contributing factors to the disparate
rates of impoverishment are race-based, so must be the
remedies.
MYTH 6: Equal opportunity
stigmatizes its beneficiaries
FACT: The stigma facing
women and people of color is not caused by equal opportunity
action but by the very stereotypes that have always been
used to exclude such groups from educational and employment
opportunities.
The real source of a “stigma”
for women and people of color is not equal opportunity at
all. Does anyone really believe that before equal
opportunity, there were no negative stereotypes associated
with the academic and professional capabilities of women and
people of color? The reason it is so easy to stereotype the
beneficiaries of these policies is because our culture is
already loaded with negative stereotypes about the
competence of women and people of color. The beneficiaries
of these programs are stigmatized for the very same reasons
that these policies exist in the first place: persistent and
sometimes unconscious beliefs that women and people of color
are simply less talented, hardworking and competent than
their while male counterparts.
After all, if affirmative
action is the cause of stigma, how can we explain the
absence of stigma’s burden when genuinely preferential
programs for non-minorities cause no such stigmas?
MYTH 7: Existing
anti-discrimination laws are adequate to create equal
opportunity.
FACT: Anti-discrimination
laws are an important but limited tool: they are primarily
designed to address some forms of “in your face,”
discrimination, but they cannot correct for the full range
of discriminatory and unfair practices that limit
opportunity in America. These laws are woefully inadequate
to the task of ensuring equal opportunity for all
Americans. Equal opportunity complements these laws by
correcting for other forms of discrimination that the law
does not or cannot address, and by providing a proactive and
efficient way for institutions to overcome discrimination
and bias in their hiring and admissions procedures.
MYTH 8: Individual effort
and hard work determines who becomes prosperous and wealthy
in the United States. Thus, government should stay out of
the business of trying to diminish these disparities through
the creation of programs such as equal opportunity.
FACT: Common sense and
our lived experiences teach us that hard work and wealth do
not necessarily go hand in hand. Moreover, government
policies have enriched some Americans at the expense of
others, enabling them to accrue far more capital assets than
women and their minority counterparts. These assets are
then passed on to their children. This intergenerational
transfer of wealth offers the key to understanding racial
stratifications in the United States.
Critics of equal opportunity
lean heavily on the myth that people make it on their own in
the United States based on hard work and individual effort.
They ask: Why should the beneficiaries of equal opportunity
be the recipients of preferential governmental policies when
white males acquired their wealth through hard work?
If we think well-off white
males got their wealth only through individual ability and
hard work, then the solution will be to urge low-income
women and people of color to try harder. To begin with,
wealth CANNOT be viewed as simply a measure of hard work.
In fact, many of the hardest workers in America are the
lease prosperous. Are our friends and family members who
earn small salaries as laborers and service workers to be
condemned as slackers because the wealth they have
accumulated fails to reflect the long hours they have
worked? Throughout our history, women and people of color
have been shut out of the most asset-building activities
including home ownership, business, and prestigious
occupations and jobs with the highest paying salaries.
The state has played a major
role in creating such disparities. It should now work to
level the playing field.
MYTH 9: Color blindness is,
and always has been, a basic American ideal. Its advocates
oppose equal opportunity not because they oppose racial
progress, but because it contradicts our societal consensus
on color blindness.
FACT: Color blindness
implies that “race” is no more significant than eye color in
contemporary America. Its supporters insist that to treat
people equally they must all be treated the same. The logic
of this perspective hinges on the belief that, in essence,
America has transcended the racism of its past and that, for
the most part, we are all similarly situated across racial
lines.
In fact, color blindness is
not race-neutral. It does not ignore race, nor does it
allow for people to be treated fairly and equitable.
Indeed, it serves as a shield for white privilege while
embracing the language of racial justice. Color blindness
is a “preference,” a preference for the status quo. It
allows institutional and structural forms of racism to
continue unabated.
MYTH 10: Absent equal
opportunity, race is an empty and meaningless as skin color;
it is equal opportunity that creates racial differences.
FACT: Reducing race to
something as innocuous as skin color permits critics of
color-conscious policies to argue that people are treated
equally as long as no one’s race is taken into account. By
this logic, it follows that equality can be brought about by
treating everyone the same without any consideration of race
at all. But this superficial equality is blind to the
reality that race is not primarily about skin color. What
we have come think of as race is the cumulative effect of
legal rules, social policy and cultural practice. The
effects of these cumulative practices are NOT the same for
white males and women and people of color.
Racial differences in the
United States have been present at least ever since white
males made themselves dominant over all other groups, and
the only way to address this is by acknowledging the ways in
which “male whiteness” functions. We live in a society with
deeply-entrenched and zealously-guarded racial differences.
Equal opportunity serves to break down these constructed
differences (for instance, by introducing diversity into
spaces that would otherwise remain barred to women and
people of color). It is part of a strategy aimed at ending
racial domination that otherwise would continue
unchallenged. It, therefore, represents a response to, not
the cause of, the racial disparities that emerge from a norm
of privileged male whiteness.
MYTH 11: Equal opportunity is
a domestic policy that reflects an obsession with race that
is peculiar to America.
TRUTH: Equal opportunity
is not the product of an American obsession with race. It
is embraced by the International Covenant for the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Across the globe,
many countries have pursued and embraced affirmative
measures to address various forms of
institutional/structural subordination. Moreover, in an
increasingly interdependent world it is supported by many
mainstream corporations and their clients who recognize the
competitive advantages of a diverse workforce.
Equal opportunity is neither
unique to the U.S., nor limited to the particular type of
post slavery/apartheid society that the U.S. represents.
Many countries around the world employ various forms of
equal opportunity to advance social justice concerns.
For instance
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South Africa’s
Constitution explicitly endorses equal opportunity.
Section 9 (2) of the Bill of Rights is
dedicated to equality and provides that: “To promote
the achievement of equality, legislative and other
measures designed to protect or advance persons, or
categories of persons, disadvantaged by unfair
discrimination may be taken.”
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India has a long history
of using reservations to ensure that all classes are
included in the representative government and in
governmental positions.
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Brazil is pursuing equal
opportunity in higher education and in corporate
employment.
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Equal opportunity is
consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms.
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Israel uses equal
opportunity, among other things, to integrate Arabs and
Ethiopian Jews into government employment, and
educational institutions.
Many multinational companies
support equal opportunity. 3M, a $16.7 billion
manufacturing and technology company with operations in more
than 60 countries and customers in nearly 200 countries and
Boeing, which makes 70 percent of its commercial airplane
sales to international customers, argue that:
“Because our population is
diverse, and because of the increasingly global reach of
American business, the skills and training needed to succeed
in business today demand exposure to widely diverse people,
cultures, ideas and viewpoint. Employees at every level of
an organization must be able to work effectively with people
who are different from themselves. We need the talent and
creativity of a workforce that is as diverse as the world
around it.”
MYTH 12: Opposing equal
opportunity is consistent with the vision of equality
articulated in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream of a
colorblind America.
FACT: Contrary to what
critics of equal opportunity contend,
Dr. King actually supported equal opportunity action
policies! In this respect, he wrote that “a society that
has done something special to harm the Negro should now do
something special to help him”—otherwise equality will
remain out of reach. Treating similarly situated people
differently is un-American. But taking race and gender into
account to dismantle systemic forms of discrimination
represents nothing more than an effort to promote equal
opportunity.
Equal opportunity opponents
claim that they symbolize the contemporary embodiment of Dr.
King’s colorblind vision for the future of America—the
vision he championed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
during the historic “March on Washington.” In reality, they
do not embody the values he stood for. His dream, after
all, did not embrace the idea that one could eliminate
racial inequality by ignoring race in contemporary America.
Nor did he assume that one could promote equality by
treating people in decidedly different situations as though
they were similarly situated.
In this regard, it should be
noted that virtually every effort to lift the burden of
racial iniquities in American society has been denounced as
a form of preferential treatment. Supporters of slavery
resisted plans to free those held in bondage on the grounds
that they unfairly took away the slaveholders’ property
interest in the slave and redistributed property to the
slave. Even the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
which abolished involuntary servitude, was said by
segregationists to compel them to behave in ways that were
fundamentally unfair.
The deployment of the idea
that race-based policies that serve to eliminate
discriminatory practices somehow advantage their
beneficiaries has long been a standard tactic on the part of
those who seek to subvert programs designed to redress
racial iniquities in the U.S. As such, anti-equal
opportunity critics pay homage not to Dr. King, but to
Americans throughout history who have refused to provide
fair opportunities to people of color on the grounds that
such policies actually operate to advantage minorities over
their white counterparts
MYTH 13: Equal opportunity
is to blame for lower income among white males.
TRUTH: Average real wages
have fallen 19% and 26% for young families with children
since 1973. But equal opportunity is not the reason.
Everyone is losing jobs as corporations move overseas,
downsize, hire part-time workers, automate and computerize.
The real travesty is when any student-male or female white
or of color—is denied access to education not because of
equal opportunity, but because society has devalued and
divested money away from education. According to the the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, equal opportunity
is considered essential to insuring that jobs are genuinely
and equally accessible to qualified persons, without regard
to sex, race, or ethnicity.
For a more in-depth study,
please see African American Policy Forum,
http://aapf.org/too_to_speak_out/focus/
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