Text: ‘plans and goals absent’
(Continued from Page 13)
opened the opportunity) "all professionally
Qualified candidates."
Lack of understanding by departments, or
simply hostility toward the concept of Af
firmative Action would explain poor
responses like those listed above; however,
it does not explain the failure of the vice
presidents or the top administrative officials
to reject these poor instances of compliance,
instead of utilizing the opportunity to
educate a department about the intent of
Affirmative Action and the commitment of
the University to Affirmative Acton, instead
of refusing to authorize hiring when flagrant
violations of the Affirmative Action Com
mitment occurred, these positions were
authorized and deoartments understood this
behavior to imply, that Affirmative Action
could, with the administration's blessings,
be treated lightly. Considering that the HEW
Compliance Statement represents a mere
after the fact rationalization, it could have
received token commitment, but its fate did
not include even that.
for mr acv-wyvai w■ • • wm
pliance Statement, the Compliance
statement is being revised The word "and"
between minorities and women is being un
derlined; hoping that this emphasis (?) will
impress upon departments the importance
of Affirmative Action. However, it was not in
the form that the major problemlay— it was
in the implementation. Commitment and
aggressive monitoring of that form's con
tent, that is, aggressive recruitment of
minorities and women,must be forthcoming
from the vice presidents. Where the im
plementation is not adequate as judged by
thp virp-nrpr.;rtents and the Office of Af
firmative Action, the authorization must be
denied. When a department realizes that
positions may be lost and subsequently
budgets reduced by the continued practice
of discriminatory hiring, then their talents
and resources are more likely to be utilized
to identify new, successful equal em
’oyment recruiting and hiring methods.
,\ore desirable, the vice presidents will
“■convey their commitment before punitive
incentives need be applied; further through
the use of positive incentives to departments
that comply, other departments will follow
suit. If freezing positions will not be con
sidered by top administrative officials, than
at least they must be willing to refuse
authorization to a department obviously out
of compliance.
It would appear, therefore, that the top
administrative officials are reluctant to
recognize the authority they possess to
create true change in hiring procedures.
Until they are willing to exercise their
authority to fulfill the commitment and
responsibility they have to Affirmative
Action, change in hiring procedures will be
minimal. Ethnic Information
The systematic collection of Ethnic in
formation has raised concern about violating
the rights of ethnic persons. Laws have in the
past argued against the use of ethnic in
formation to deny employment.Therefore, it
was forbidden to request ethnic data for
purposes of employemtn discrimination.
These laws speak to the use of ethnic data.
Affirmative Action goals necessitate in
formation on ethnic identity. Viable and
attainable goals for recruitment are in
fluenced by the ethnic composition of the
applicant flow. If the applicant flow includes
members of ethnic groups, the University is
obligated to examinethe past treatment of
these applications to determine if ethnically
biased criteria is rejecting them. If,
however, the University does not examine
how minorities are processed, it will not be
able to identify a part or parts of the process
that are, in fact if not in intent,
discriminatory against minorities. The task
of compiling ethnic information is
challenged and resisted on the grounds of
violating the constitutional rights of in
dividuals as well as violating laws against
•e compilation of this kind of material. The
iv is clear in its intent, i.e. to prevent
scrimination on the basis of race or
national identity. In its Affirmative Action
thrust, the University is seeking to utilize
this data to prevent discrimination against
minorities, therefore, the legal intent is not
being violated.
Historical patterns demonstrate that the
ethnic factor was used for purposes of
discrimination, even though it wasn't in
eluded in the application form. The
discrimination against minorities made
obvious by the number of minority drop
outs, poor jobs, poor promotion, etc., did not
raise a cry of concern about violating the
constitutional rights of those individuals,
Wrien me data was requested for correcting
past patterns, the concern for protecting
minorities received converts.
The implementation of ethnic data com
pilation will be crucial. If it is incorporated
into the normal procedure of requesting,
address, phone number and social security
number, it will be more normally accepted
Where its compilation is qualified, stressed,
apologized for, then it will be viewed as an
imposition, as unnatural, and ethnic persons
may be moved to resent this apologetic (?)
intrusion into their lives
The University will have to determine if
ethnic information is necessary for self
evaluation and monitoring of employment
practices If it is necessary, and I suggest it
is mandatory, then they have the respon
sibility for designing an effective means to
compile the needed data. And it must guard
aqainst creating "straw men" in their
Underutilization
Underutilization in the administrative
ranks will perhaps prove the most difficult to
alter Departments with large numbers of
women have developed and maintain ex
elusive patterns of male hiring of ad
o-imstrativc positions Criteria used to
recruit and hire for the too administrative
positions needs to be examined to determine
how its sex and ethnic bias is manifested To
arque that there is no sex and ethnic bias
before a thorough study occurs, represents
questionable intent This problem of
discrimination in employment must be
addressed through careful and thorough
examination and move beyond the realm of
opinion and threatened egos
Good Faith Efforts
The University necessarily will strive to
establish that it demonstrated a "good faith
effort." They will argue that although goals
were not achieved or only partially
achieved, the effort expended was in good
faith. Because a legal definition of good faith
does not exist, a determination of good faith
is highly subjective. Good faith guidelines
found in one preliminary draft include: Data
Collection, Reporting Procedures, Policies
Developed, Results which Reflect Sub
stantial Change, Difference in the Com
position of the Work Force. The preparation,
the criteria used to determined goals
becomes highly important. Were goals
arrived at through careful analysis and
planning or were they designed to fail
through poor planning, inadequate analysis,
etc. Proving good faith, therefore, will in
volve an analysis of the preparation and
planning tor goals, as well as the im
plementation of those plans and the sub
sequent achievement or non achievement of
the goals themselves.
The problem of good faith, however, ex
tends beyond the absence of specific, ob
jective definitional criteria. An equally
important question is the validity of in
troducing good faith into the legal realm.
Affirmative Action as a program is created
to deal with a specific problem: employment
discrimination on the basis of sex, race, or
national origin.
The program should seek to identify
patterns of discrimination on the basis of sex
or ethnic identifications occurring within the
employment realm: recruitment, hiring,
promotion, demotion, salaries, retention,
terminations, etc. The program, then, should
include a plan for altering these patterns and
eliminating the discriminatory practices. If
the practices or patterns change, the
unlawful activity is disengaged. If the
practices remain unaltered, the institution
remains engaged in unlawful activity.
Whether its intent or good faith is good or
bad should be inconsequential. In an oral
presentation, Harry Edwards from the
University of Michigan Law School main
tained: "Good intent does not redeem
discriminatory procedures.” He offers an
expansion of this premise in his prepared
text. The Law and Personnel Policies: The
Need for Equity in Minority Hiring: The
Supreme Court has recently made it clear
that in measuring "discrimination under
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: . .
qooa intent or the absence of discriminatory
intent does not redeem employment
procedu-e* »• testina mechanisms that
operate as 'built-in headwinds' for minority
oroups and are unrelated to measuring job
capability . " "The Act proscribes not only
overt discrimination but also practices that
are fair in form, but discriminatory in
operation . . Once you understand that we
are dealing with "effects,” and not merely
motives, in situations of alleged employment
discrimination, then the caselaw is more
easily comprehended
Therefore, energies expended in
establishing good faith efforts; i.e. written
documentation (letters in triplicate,
memorandums, records of phone con
versations, etc.), extensive records, etc.,
can represent a distortion of original intent.
individuals striving ''to prove” good faith
effort might have more successfully utilized
their energies meeting numerical goals. The
Affirmative Action thrust must be directed
at results rather than efforts.
OFFICE OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
The Director of Affirmative Action is a
Special Assistant to the President. The
potential for communication was great. The
opportunity for minority input on Af
firmative Action was available. Un
fortunately the office was grossly un
derutilized. in fact, President Clark did not
schedule meetings with the Interim
Director; nor did he ask his Special
(Continued on Page 18)
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A WORKING SENATOR . . .
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