Leverage: Racial Realism in the Professions and Business

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Skrentny
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Racial Realism ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
Occupational Qualification

This chapter examines racial realism in white-collar and professional employment. It focuses on medicine, journalism, and marketing, providing evidence of the strong support for hiring on the basis of racial abilities and signaling in these jobs. The chapter also shows the support for the racial abilities and signaling that make racial “diversity” attractive to corporate employers. When it comes to legal authorization for racial realism, there is surprisingly little in this sector, as the courts have refused to allow a race BFOQ (“bona fide occupational qualification”), and they have not modified rulings that prohibit customer tastes as a justification for racial discrimination. Another key legal obstacle here is that courts have not allowed voluntary affirmative action to be motivated by racial-realist goals.

scholarly journals Employees’ perceptions of the implementation of affirmative action in the health sector in the Standerton District in South Africa

Curationis ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
E Rankhumse ◽  
G Netswera ◽  
M Meyer
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Total Population ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Quantitative Design ◽  
Increase In Productivity

Since the inception of a fully democratic government in South Africa in 1994, government and trade unions have been placing increasing pressure on government departments and public institutions to introduce steps to correct racial discrimination through the implementation of affirmative action (AA). This study, which was carried out in the Standerton Health District, assesses employees’ perceptions of and attitudes towards the implementation of AA. A quantitative design was used. Data was gathered from a total population of 360 employees by means of a questionnaire. The study revealed the following major themes: • Respondents feel that if AA were effectively implemented, there would be an increase in productivity. • There is strong support for the implementation of AA appointments. • The implementation of AA will fail if the goals of AA are not properly and effectively communicated to all employees.

scholarly journals THE MANY FACES OF STRICT SCRUTINY: HOW THE SUPREME COURT CHANGES THE RULES IN RACE CASES

2010 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Gerstmann ◽  
Christopher Shortell
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Racial Profiling ◽  
Single Test ◽  
Strict Scrutiny ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Many

In this paper, we argue that there is no single test called strict scrutiny when the Court considers claims of racial discrimination. In fact, the Court changes the rules depending on why and how the government is using race. By examining racial redistricting, remedial affirmative action, and diversity-based affirmative action cases, we show how the Court uses at least three verydifferent versions of strict scrutiny. The costs of maintaining the fiction of unitary strict scrutiny is high. In the area of racial profiling, for example, courts refuse to apply strict scrutiny for fear that it will either overly hamper police or will weaken strict scrutiny in other areas of racial discrimination. An open acknowledgment that the Court is already using different standards of analysis for different types of racial discrimination would allow courts to craft appropriate standards without fear of diminishing protections in other areas.

Race and Affirmative Action in Higher Education

Education ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie J. Park ◽  
Katie K. Koo
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Admissions Policies ◽  
Holistic Review ◽  
Supreme Court Rulings ◽  
Admissions Process

Affirmative action is one of the most highly contested policies in US higher education. Affirmative action refers to the ability of colleges and universities to act “affirmatively” with the goal of increasing racial diversity within their institutions. In order to do this, universities have race-conscious admissions policies, meaning that they may consider an applicant’s race as one of numerous factors in weighing whether to admit a student or not. Race-conscious admissions policies stand in contrast to “race-blind” or “race-neutral” policies, which do not consider an applicant’s race as a factor in any portion of the admissions process. In general, race-conscious admissions policies at the undergraduate level generally affect only selective and highly selective institutions, a fraction of colleges and universities. However, other types of affirmative-action-related programs (e.g., affirmative action in hiring faculty, scholarships for minority students) exist at a broader range of institutions and are affected by the continued legality of race-conscious admissions. Affirmative action has notable symbolic significance. A key component of the debate is whether universities should be able to take race into account in the admissions process, which reflects a broader controversy over whether color-blindness or some measure of race consciousness is the more appropriate way to address the continued underrepresentation of certain minority groups in higher education. Thus, the affirmative-action debate has garnered a significant amount of media and public attention since the 1970s. Due to numerous court cases, the legal permissibility and justification for affirmative action remains in flux. Different states, such as California and Washington, have also passed anti-affirmative-action ordinances. Some confusion exists over what affirmative action is and is not. Affirmative action is often associated with quotas or set-asides; that is, reserving a certain number of seats for a particular group in an admissions pool. However, such measures have been illegal since the 1970s. Points systems that assign a specific amount of points related to an applicant’s race/ethnicity are also illegal. However, under current Supreme Court rulings, holistic review of applicants that considers the influence of race as one of numerous factors is generally legal except in states that have passed affirmative-action bans. Finally, the implementation of affirmative action also varies from institution to institution due to the unique contexts of different college campuses. Various universities choose to weigh different criteria given their needs and range of applicants.

Racial diversity and its asymmetry within and across hierarchical levels: The effects on financial performance

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (10) ◽  
pp. 1671-1696 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Smulowitz ◽  
Manuel Becerra ◽  
Margarita Mayo
Keyword(s):  
Financial Performance ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Business Case ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Law Firms ◽  
Firm Financial Performance ◽  
Hierarchical Levels ◽  
Surprising Finding

The benefits and drawbacks of diversity inside organizations have been the focus of attention for researchers and practitioners for several decades. In our article, we investigate the business case for racial diversity across different hierarchical levels. More precisely, we ask: How does racial diversity within organizations and its asymmetry across hierarchical levels affect their financial performance? From a sample of 143 US law firms from 2008 to 2012, we provide strong support for the business case and show that greater racial diversity for the entire organization is positively associated with firm financial performance. However, contrary to our initial expectations, the benefits of diversity are not more pronounced at the top of the organization, where its effects should arguably be more clearly observable. Diversity seems to have a similar effect across the three levels in law firms: associates, mid-level and partners. Furthermore, we find that the most profitable firms actually have their racial diversity heavily concentrated at the associate level. We discuss alternative explanations for this surprising finding and why the top-performing law firms have both overall higher degree of racial diversity and more concentration of its diversity at the lower level.

After Civil Rights

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Skrentny
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Racial Difference ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Immigrant Status ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Racial Realism ◽  
New Strategy

What role should racial difference play in the American workplace? As a nation, we rely on civil rights law to address this question, and the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1964 seemingly answered it: race must not be a factor in workplace decisions. This book contends that after decades of mass immigration, many employers, Democratic and Republican political leaders, and advocates have adopted a new strategy to manage race and work. Race is now relevant not only in negative cases of discrimination, but in more positive ways as well. In today's workplace, employers routinely practice “racial realism,” where they view race as real—as a job qualification. Many believe employee racial differences, and sometimes immigrant status, correspond to unique abilities or evoke desirable reactions from clients or citizens. They also see racial diversity as a way to increase workplace dynamism. The problem is that when employers see race as useful for organizational effectiveness, they are often in violation of civil rights law. This book examines this emerging strategy in a wide range of employment situations, including the low-skilled sector, professional and white-collar jobs, and entertainment and media. The book urges us to acknowledge the racial realism already occurring, and lays out a series of reforms that, if enacted, would bring the law and lived experience more in line, yet still remain respectful of the need to protect the civil rights of all workers.

“This backdrop of entrenched inequality”

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond S. King ◽  
Rogers M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Employment Policy ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
Sort It ◽  
American Life ◽  
Racial Policy

This chapter illustrates the conflicting approaches advanced by today's racial alliances on issues of race equality in the workplace, as on so many other topics—conflicts that include disagreements not only over formal affirmative action programs but also over the legitimacy of race-conscious policymaking of any sort. It is no accident when these issues emerge with particular intensity in employment policy. No area of American life is more central to the quest to eradicate unjust material racial inequalities. This is why, as the chapter shows, previous struggles on racial equality focused so strongly on equality in the workplace. While such actions were hailed by many veterans of the civil rights movement as necessary, color-blind proponents came to assail these as new forms of unjust racial discrimination. Contestation over these policies became the central “battleground” around which modern racial policy coalitions formed.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Onoso Imoagene
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Jersey ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Collar ◽  
The United States ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Success Story ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Prep School

Idowu Damola grew up in a poor family in a very bad neighborhood in a large New Jersey city.1 He recalls walking along the glass-strewn block where he lived, “with people yelling and screaming and fighting. It was a pretty run-down place.” His big break came when he won a full scholarship to an elite all-boys prep school in Connecticut. After he graduated, Idowu went on to study business and finance at Yale University, one of the top ten universities in the United States. At the time I spoke with him, Idowu had just started working as an investment broker on Wall Street. To get there, he had taken advantage of affirmative action opportunities available to black people in the United States. His progression from a “run-down” street in urban New Jersey to a coveted white-collar job on Wall Street is an American success story, a story that exemplifies the promise many immigrants see in America....

Racially-Mixed Personal Identity Equality

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 354-364
Author(s):  
Tanya Katerí Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Racially Mixed

A growing number of commentators view discrimination against multiracial (racially-mixed) people as a distinctive challenge to racial equality. This perspective is based on the belief that multiracial-identified persons experience racial discrimination in a manner that makes it necessary to reconsider civil rights law. This article disputes that premise and deconstructs its Personal Identity Equality approach to anti-discrimination law and demonstrates its ill effects reflected in Supreme Court affirmative action litigation.

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