Written by ‘Classical Liberal’
Left-wing politics in the UK and USA seems to be all about race these days. For example, for the last two weeks or so, the mainstream media in the UK has been dominated by Me-Gain’s Oprah interview and Baroness Lawrence’s accusation that the UK is institutionally racist. The radical changes that the radical Left is calling for can best be described as ‘affirmative action’. This article attempts to examine what affirmative action is, and what the adoption of a radical program of affirmative action might mean for the UK.
The term ‘affirmative action’ was first used in the USA in Executive Order Number 10925 signed by President John F. Kennedy on 6 March 1961. It included a provision that government contractors ‘take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated [fairly] during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin’. It was used to promote actions that achieve non-discrimination. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order Number 11246, which required government employers to ‘hire without regard to race, religion and national origin’ and to ‘take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated [fairly] during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin’.
The principle of affirmative action is to promote societal equality through the preferential treatment of socio-economically disadvantaged people. Often, these people are disadvantaged for historical reasons, such as oppression or slavery. Historically, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve a range of goals: bridging inequality in employment and pay; increasing access to education; enriching state, institutional, and professional leadership with the full spectrum of society; and redressing apparent past wrongs, harms or hindrances.
Affirmative action is intended to promote the opportunities of defined minority groups within a society, to give them equal access to the opportunities enjoyed by the majority population. Typically, the focus is on promotional, educational, and training opportunities.
Laws regarding quotas and affirmative action vary widely from country to country.
Caste-based and other group-based quotas are used in India’s Reservation System – a system of affirmative action that provides historically disadvantaged groups representation in education, employment, and politics.
In 2012, the EU Commission approved a plan for women to constitute 40% of non-executive directorships in large listed companies in the European Union by 2020.
Whereas, in Sweden, the Supreme Court has ruled that ‘affirmative action’ ethnic quotas in universities are discriminatory and thus unlawful. The Court said that the requirements for the intake should be the same for all.
Indeed, in some countries that have laws on racial equality, affirmative action is rendered illegal because it does not treat all races equally. This approach of equal treatment is sometimes described as being ‘colour blind’, in hopes that it is effective against discrimination without engaging in reverse discrimination. In such cases, the focus tends to be on ensuring equal opportunity. By targeted advertising campaigns to encourage ethnic minority candidates to join the police force, for example. This is sometimes called ‘positive action’.
The UK’s Equality Act 2010 established the principles of equality and their implementation in the UK. In the UK, any discrimination, quotas, or favouritism due to sex, race, and ethnicity, among other ‘protected characteristics’ is illegal by default in education, employment, during commercial transactions, in a private club or association, and while using public services. However, exceptions exist, which enables the PC Brigade to push their corrosive agenda, notably:
Section 159 of the Equality Act allows an employer to treat an applicant or employee with a protected characteristic (eg race, sex, or age) more favourably in connection with recruitment or promotion than someone without that characteristic who is as qualified for the role. The employer must reasonably think that people with the protected characteristic suffer a disadvantage or are under-represented in that particular activity. Taking the positive action must be a proportionate means of enabling or encouraging people to overcome the disadvantage or to take part in the activity.
Specific examples include the following. Part of the Northern Ireland peace process, the Good Friday Agreement, and the resulting Patten Report required the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to recruit 50% of numbers from the Catholic community and 50% from the Protestant and other communities, in order to reduce any possible bias towards Protestants. This was later referred to as the ’50:50’ measure. The Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002 allowed the use of all-women shortlists to select more women as election candidates.
However, it’s not entirely a one-way street. Indeed, the whole issue of affirmative action in the UK seems rather confused, and desperately in need of clarity.
For example, in 2019, an employment tribunal ruled that, while attempting to create a more diverse force, Cheshire Police had discriminated against a ‘well prepared’ white heterosexual male. The ruling stated that ‘while positive action can be used to boost diversity, it should only be used to distinguish between candidates who were all equally well qualified for a role’.
Several different studies investigated the effect of affirmative action on women. Kurtulus (2012) in her review of affirmative action and the occupational advancement of minorities and women during 1973-2003 showed that the effect of affirmative action on advancing black, Hispanic, and white women into management, professional, and technical occupations occurred primarily during the 1970s and early 1980s. During this period, contractors grew their shares of these groups more rapidly than non-contractors because of the implementation of affirmative action. But the positive effect of affirmative action vanished entirely in the late 1980s, which Kurtulus reckons may be due to the political shift of affirmative action that was started by President Ronald Reagan. Becoming a federal contractor increased white women’s share of professional occupations by 9.3% during these three decades, and increased black women’s share by 3.9%. Becoming a federal contractor also increased Hispanic women’s and black men’s share of technical occupations by 7.7% and 4.2% respectively. These represent a substantial contribution of affirmative action to overall trends in the occupational advancement of women and minorities over the three decades under the study.
A reanalysis of multiple scholarly studies, especially in Asia, considered the impact of four primary factors on support for affirmative action programs for women: gender, political factors, psychological factors, and social structure. Kim and Kim (2014) found that, ‘Affirmative action both corrects existing unfair treatment and gives women equal opportunity in the future’.
A 2017 study of federal affirmative action regulations in the USA estimated that the regulation ‘increases the black share of employees over time: in 5 years after an establishment is first regulated, the black share of employees increases by an average of 0.8 percentage points. Strikingly, the black share continues to grow at a similar pace even after an establishment is deregulated. [The author] argues that this persistence is driven in part by affirmative action inducing employers to improve their methods for screening potential hires’.
According to a poll taken by USA Today in 2005, the majority of Americans support affirmative action for women, while views on minority groups were more split. However, a slight majority of Americans do believe that affirmative action goes beyond ensuring access and goes into the realm of preferential treatment. More recently, a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey from June 2009 finds that 55% of Americans feel that affirmative action, in general, should be discontinued; though 55% support it for disabilities. A Gallup poll from 2005 showed that 72% of black Americans and 44% of white Americans supported racial affirmative action; with support among Hispanics falling between those of blacks and whites. Support among blacks, unlike among whites, had almost no correlation with political affiliation.
A 2009 Quinnipiac poll found 65% of American voters opposed the application of affirmative action to homosexuals.
A Leger poll taken in 2010 found 59% of Canadians opposed considering race, gender, or ethnicity when hiring for government jobs.
A 2014 Pew Research Center poll found that 63% of Americans thought affirmative action programs aimed at increasing minority representation on university campuses were ‘a good thing’, compared to 30% who thought they were ‘a bad thing’. The following year, Gallup released a poll showing that 67% of Americans supported affirmative action programs aimed at increasing female representation, compared to 58% who supported such programs aimed at increasing the representation of racial minorities.
ANY COMMENTS DEEMED TO BE ‘AD HOMINEM’ WILL BE BINNED.
The most qualified person, suitable to the job, should be employed regardless of colour, race, gender or any other consideration.
What should matter would be the employers’ requirements for the job and the aptitude of the prospective employee.
Only one way to stop affirmative action dead in its tracks ( just like mass immigration, culture wars, erosion of free speech and all other aspects of the march of the progressive Left – never, ever, vote LIB/LAB/CON.
Or Green Jake. I’m sure they are just as bad. Being in a minority so far they’ll tag along.
Your comment has made me think back to the early days of UKIP. Add growth of small businesses and perhaps a few more things to your list and they’re the sort of things they stood for.
Whatever happened to the idea that “… ALL citizens are equal before the law?
If I refuse to hire someone because he/she is black, brown.yellow,or whatever that is discrimination.
If I refuse to employ someone who is totally unsuited to the job due to lack of qualiications and that person happens to be black, brown, yellow,or whatever,then I am in serious trouble and will be branded as a “racist” at the very least.
A quota system inevitably leads to “positive” disrimination whereby the BEST candidate probably does not get the position.
Look at parliament and the BBC…
More or less my thinking Richard. Plus there’s the matter of freedom of speech, opinion and thought.
At times during my childhood and a bit later my mother took in what she liked to call ‘paying guests’. I suppose it was a sort of ‘bed and breakfast’ system really. She would have been horrified at the thought of having a BAME person in her house. Where’s the right or wrong in someone saying she OUGHT NOT to discriminate?
Having said that, I’ll mention the other side of classical liberal’s article. He talks about Kennedy’s policy in the USA. Well there, at that time, there was entrenched discrimination against Black citizens and his measures were justified, there, at that time. The positive discrimination that came later was not and it certainly is not justified here, now.
Selection should be on merit alone.
When you see a “minority” in an unusual job, you know they are the “Token (whatever)” and hence likely to be useless.
Yet to see a woman emptying bins, they only want the “good” jobs.
Woman emptying bins? There’s one comes round here.
Are there any women airline pilots? Or are they only capable of being stewardesses?
And incidentally, Harry Again. ‘Merit’. Apparently in your mind emptying bins is the job for the lowest of the low, people who do not ‘merit’ anything better.
Are they the ‘untouchables’ along with all ‘vaccination refuseniks’?
Yes they are. The ones that were idle at school.
It’s a job nobody wants.
Oh heck. All these studies and polls. Well I suppose it keeps the unemployment figures down.
Surely it is obvious. Ideally there would be no discrimination either way, anywhere. It’s not an ideal world. So, in the case of public service, where in effect ‘the state’ provides the employment, the state has the ‘right’ or even duty to ban discrimination. Not to impose positive discrimination though.
Private companies are a bit more difficult. Suppose I own a business needing 10 employees. If I have a personal prejudice against Black Men, (which I certainly do not have incidentally), is it right to attempt to force me to employ them?