The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action.

The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action. By Terry H. Anderson. (New York and other cities: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi, 320. Paper, $17.95, ISBN 0-19-518245-6; cloth, $35.00, ISBN 0-19-515764-8.)

Affirmative action has a long history in the United States--longer than the modern civil rights movement. Terry H. Anderson traces its roots back three decades before John F. Kennedy in 1961 issued an executive order calling for "affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin" (p. 60). In 1934 the Public Works Administration, under the direction of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, required contractors in cities with "an 'appreciable Negro population'" based on the 1930 census "to employ a fixed percentage of skilled black workers" (p. 12). Anderson suggests that Franklin Delano Roosevelt's order creating the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) in 1941 provided the foundation for Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which led to the development of affirmative action programs, in "promot[ing] employment free of discrimination" (p. 47).

The FEPC, which relied on voluntarism and persuasion, foreshadowed the dilemma that affirmative action posed when it was launched in the late 1960s: what constitutes "free of discrimination" and what measures can the government take to achieve it? Supporters of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, such as Senator Hubert Humphrey, argued that ending racial discrimination in employment did not mean the imposition of quotas, and the statute barred "preferential treatment" based on race (p. 97). Yet in 1965 Lyndon Baines Johnson supported the idea that race-neutral policies could not eradicate the effects of past discrimination built into the system--what would be called "[i]nstitutional racism" (p. 95). In 1967 Johnson expanded coverage of affirmative action to include sex discrimination, largely as a response to the burgeoning women's movement. At the same time, another political force persuaded the Johnson administration to expand the definition of affirmative action. Black urban rebellions from 1965 to 1968 convinced the chief executive that the color-blind provisions of Title VII were not sufficient to get the mass of African Americans into the job market. Hence, the Labor Department adopted "specific goals and timetables" that employers and unions receiving federal funds had to meet in employing and promoting minorities (quoted on p. 105).

Liberal Democrats did not corner the market in transforming affirmative action from color-blind to color-conscious policies. The Nixon administration and its secretary of labor, George Schultz, revised Johnson's "Philadelphia Plan," establishing "a flexible 'target range' for contractors and unions ... related to the percentage of" minority workers in the local job pool (p. 117). "[G]oals, targets, and timetables" became the standard operating procedure of affirmative action programs whether administered by the Department of Labor or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (quoted on p. 117).

The executive branch received the blessing of the Supreme Court in a series of cases during the 1970s. The judiciary discarded job aptitude tests that had a "disparate impact" in perpetuating racial discrimination (p. 128); upheld minority set-asides to eliminate the effects of past discrimination; approved voluntary, race-conscious, affirmative action plans adopted by private corporations; and sanctioned race as a reasonable means for recruiting a diverse student body in higher education.

At no time did the Court, the White House, or Congress accept quotas as a remedy for racial or sexual discrimination. Nevertheless, beginning in the 1980s and the onset of the Reagan administration, opponents stepped up the attack against affirmative action using arguments of reverse racism and inflexible quotas. Though supporters responded that quotas kept people out whereas affirmative action brought people in, and furnished statistical evidence that showed minorities underrepresented in the work force and in universities, proponent of affirmative action waged an increasingly uphill battle to keep the programs intact. In the late 1980s the effects of the Reagan administration's judicial appointments resulted in the adoption by the Supreme Court of standards that diluted affirmative action enforcement. The high bench subjected affirmative action plans to "strict scrutiny," ruled that plaintiffs had to prove individual discrimination rather than rely on measures that proved group discrimination in the past, and demanded narrowly tailored remedies to meet the current situation (quoted on p. 242).

In the mid-1990s, Californians passed Proposition 209, which, in the name of race-free civil rights, prohibited "quotas or other forms of preferential treatment" (p. 255). These assaults seriously wounded affirmative action but did not kill it. The Clinton administration salvaged affirmative action, to paraphrase the president, by mending it, not ending it (p. 273). Furthermore, the most recent decisions of the Supreme Court have reaffirmed that race can be taken into account to produce diversity if done with flexibility and as one of many criteria under consideration.

Anderson presents a readable account of the development of affirmative action over the past seventy years and the controversy it has produced. Balanced and fair, based on archival and published sources, the book offers an excellent introduction to the topic, free from the passions and distortions that usually characterize the heated debate on the subject. It makes an ideal reading assignment for undergraduate courses. The narrative focuses more on race than sex and raises the key issue of the economic and class dimensions of the problem. However, one wishes that the author had provided more data on what affirmative action programs have accomplished and whom they benefited most. The author asks whether affirmative action is fair but in the end does not answer his own question. Certainly affirmative action is flawed and hardly a panacea. Still, in a society in which white, male privilege continues to count, using race and sexual criteria to reduce discrimination makes sense and offers some equity.

Rutgers University

STEVEN F. LAWSON