Is Affirmative Action Needed? Yes and No.
An outspoken critic of affirmative action told a Spotlight Event audience in early May that the program has outlived its usefulness and has created a state-sanctioned form of discrimination, but an advocate of the program said it remains an important step toward leveling the playing field for minority citizens.
Linda Chavez, president of the Washington-based Center For Equal Opportunity and author of a book critical of race-based government programs, said affirmative action provides unfair advantages for prospective college students of color and to minority contractors competing for lucrative federal projects. "[Affirmative action] has gone away from its original goals of recruitment and training to giving outright preferences, not just to those who have been victims of discrimination or who have been disadvantaged, but to any person who fits certain racial classifications and to women," Chavez said.
"To judge people by immutable characteristics such as the color of their skin is wrong," she said.
Arguing against Chavez was Juan Williams, an author and commentator best known for his Emmy-award winning documentary Eyes on the Prize. Williams rejected the notion that affirmative action is unnecessary as a vehicle for empowering minority Americans. "The fact is, if you look at the CEOs and people in positions of power in this country you find that it is overwhelmingly, almost exclusively, a white male preserve," he said. Williams said the recent attacks on affirmative action are politically motivated and have little to do with the reality of the American workplace. "The truth is," he said, "there is not much affirmative action going on."
Williams sharply rebutted Chavez's contention that colleges and universities should not consider race as a factor in evaluating applicants. He noted that admissions offices often select students based on non-academic characteristics such as athletic or musical ability. Only when race is used to promote diversity among its students are colleges accused of "discrimination," he said.
The fact that minority students are underrepresented at public colleges and universities suggests that states are failing to educate their citizens in proportion to their numbers. "In fact, minority tax dollars are being used to fund the educations of non-minority students," Williams said.
Chavez countered that America will never reach its goal of a "color-blind" society until affirmative action is abolished. "Two wrongs do not make a right," she said. "Policies that use race as a proxy for achievement will not lead us to a society in which color is not a dividing line."