The Case for Affirmative Action year 1975-76 from the overwhelming majority of the nation's colleges and universities, blacks composed 4.4 percent of the faculty members.93 While this percentage remains low in terms of proportionality, it does show a 52 percent increase in the total number of black faculty members in a three-year period. Thus, affirmative action can produce results when colleges and universities make attempts to comply with affirmative action regulations. In addition to their claim that affirmative action programs do not benefit blacks, the critics contend that affirmative action does not benefit colleges and universities. Among the critics, George Roche is the only one to state that affirmative action is destroying the black college and university. But Roche offers no statements from black scholars and administrators or any other evidence to support his contention that "black schools are losing their most qualified faculty members to those large, prosperous, predominantly white institutions that can afford to pay substantially higher salaries." The Mommsen dissertation, which was designed to measure effects of the "brain drain," reported that the loss of black scholars to white institutions was small in relation to the number of black Ph.D.'s who stay on black campuses.95 Moreover, several black college and university presidents such as Dr. James Cheek, president of Howard University, Dr. Andrew Billingsley, president of Morgan State University, Dr. Walter J. Leonard, the newly appointed president of Fisk University, and Dr. Hugh Gloster, president of Morehouse College, are on record in support of affirmative action. The critics also contend that affirmative action has no positive benefits in terms of costs and results for the predominantly white colleges and universities. Several maintain that affirmative action is "too costly" to implement, particularly in an era of retrenchment." They make repeated mention of the fact that the University of Michigan spent $350,000 in developing its affirmative action plan. Yet no similar criticism is raised over the costs involved in the implementing of other government regulations. Ohio State University, for example, has to spend $250,000 a year to comply with the Buckley Amendment; the University of Illinois may have to spend $557,000 to correct a violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. And it is estimated that George Washington University may have to spend more than $5.2 mil lion, and the University of Minnesota $7.2 million, to make the necessary physical changes in compliance with the new regulations for the handicapped.100 Judging from their silence in most other instances, it Response to Critics of Affirmative Action is not the cost of complying with all federal regulations that so angers the critics, but only the costs of complying with affirmative action. Moreover, the costs of implementing affirmative action should not be evaluated in a vacuum. A recent ACE study on the costs of imple menting federal programs at six institutions indicates that compliance with the regulations cost these institutions beween $9 and $10 million. The equal employment opportunity laws, the affirmative action regu lations, and the age discrimination laws combined cost these institutions roughly $1.7 million. That figure looms less and less imposing when one realizes that the same six institutions paid $5 million in increases in social security taxes.101 Affirmative action does require that colleges and universities spend money to develop and implement plans. Contrary to the critics' point of view, the costs involved in implementing and developing affirmative action plans and programs are justified in that they broaden the recruiting network. The critics also contend that affirmative action has no positive educational benefits for the predominantly white colleges and universities. The very presence of minorities brings a much needed racial and ethnic diversity to academia. There minorities can and do serve as effective role models for both black and white students. Nor will the increased presence of minorities on college and university faculties lead, as Hook has implied, to the lowering of standards for both scholarship and teaching,102 Affirmative action, rather than lowering standards of scholarship will instead broaden them. Minority scholars bring both expertise, often not readily available, and different perspectives to predominantly white institutions. Many minority scholars are interested in minority problems and solutions. Their work in such diverse fields as history, sociology, anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, foreign languages, literature, art, music, and urban planning reflect both their interest and concern. Their training enables institutions of higher education to offer a broader range of courses to deal with societal problems. Besides expanding academe's search for knowledge, affirmative action poses no threat to classroom teaching since teaching is generally regarded as one of the strengths of black educators.103 Affirmative action is not to be seen as the death knell for either black or white institutions. Instead, affirmative action, as it is envisioned here, encompasses the recruiting, training, and hiring of more black graduate The Case for Affirmative Action students. Such a process helps to ensure that a large pool of qualified candidates exists from which both black and white institutions may choose.* Alternatives to Affirmative Action: The Ideas of the Critics The six critics included within this report have been most critical of either the concept or the implementation of affirmative action programs. Several of them freely condemn affirmative action but offer no suggestions on how to increase the numbers of blacks on college and university faculties. Paul Seabury has frankly admitted that he is "genuinely baffled" when faced with the question of how to achieve “social equity" on college and university faculties. 104 George Roche is not at all baffled. Citing the example of Jews, Roche claims that racial discrimination can be overcome through "ability and effort."105 One cannot object to the Roche statement. Clearly, blacks who receive the Ph.D. have exhibited both "ability and effort." However, affirmative action ensures that the hiring process is made more fair. Thomas Sowell offers no real substantive plan on how to increase black faculty members. Sowell does propose that a better matching of institutions and black faculty could come about by the "vigorous enforcement of nondiscriminatory hiring policies." "Over a period of time," (emphasis added) he contends, such policies would lead to the presence of black scholars on campuses where they will be respected.108 What Sowell has suggested is a gradualistic approach, but black scholars are no longer inclined to wait for higher education to reform itself through "good faith" efforts. Both Sidney Hook and John Bunzel call for increases in the number of minority graduate students. In vague generalities, Hook has called for the implementing of "all effective measures-financial, psychological, social and pedagogical, that increase the number of minority graduate students."107 More recently, he has called for improvement in elementary and secondary education, the establishment of remedial educational programs, and "open enrollment and universal access to postsecondary education" so long as standards are maintained. 108 The Hook suggestions provide long-range goals, but in the meantime remedial See chapter two. Response to Critics of Affirmative Action steps such as affirmative action are needed to deal with present discriminatory treatment. One also questions whether Hook's statements are only idle lip service to equal opportunity. Hook has yet to make these statements in a situation in which he is not denouncing affirmative action. Unlike Hook, John Bunzel has proposed a seemingly sensible plan to increase minority and female candidates on college faculties. In language similar to that of the Revised Order, Bunzel has written: A serious search must be made for qualified women and minorities when faculty appointments are being made. At the departmental level, where academic recruitment is initiated, procedures should be established to include a current and realistic estimate of the pool of qualified individuals from which candidates will be drawn. Carefully balancing professional interests and priorities as it sets its own programmatic needs, the department must constantly strive to attract the best faculty possible. To this end it should demonstrate that it has reached out in its search for women and minorities.100 To increase the number of minority graduate students, Bunzel has called for increased support, financial and other, from federal and state governments, foundations, and business and industry. To expand the ranks of the qualified, Bunzel calls for programs to publicize and to promote graduate students. 110 Bunzel's concrete proposals in essence do not differ in the main from those suggested by Stephen J. Wright, a former vice-president of the College Entrance Examination Board. Earlier in 1972, Wright had proposed that more fellowship programs be set up to aid minority graduate and professional students.111 If either of these programs had been implemented in 1972 or earlier, then much of the resulting furor over the lack of qualified minorities might have been avoided. Ever since the application of affirmative action to higher education, the arguments of its critics have dominated most discussions of the concept and implementation of the program. This chapter has demonstrated how the critics' misreading and misinterpretation of Executive Order 11246 and Revised Order No. 4 have lead to unfair and distorted depictions of the program. With their repeated outcries of "violation of academic freedom," "quotas," and "reverse discrimination," the critics have stigmatized all efforts to achieve equal employment oppor. tunity in institutions of higher education. But their charges and labels are largely straw issues, unsupported by solid evidence and designed solely to increase the opposition to affirmative action. They have engaged primarily in distortion, juxtaposition, and inference in presenting their arguments. Nor have the critics offered much constructive criticism. While all are conscious of past discrimination against blacks, they remain unmindful of its recurring effects. Although the critics pay homage to the goal of equal employment opportunity, they present no viable and immediate alternatives to affirmative action. |