Affirmative Action Reconsidered: Was It Necessary in Academia?

Description

"Affirmative Action Reconsidered: Was It Necessary in Academia?"by Thomas Sowell examines the claims and counterclaimssurrounding this controversial program as it has been implemented inacademia. Statistics replace rhetoric and horror stories, and asurvey of history replaces conjecture and surmise about the law,about minorities, and about women.Professor Sowell first shows that the administration ofaffirmative action programs has run counter to the intent of Congress inpassing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Whereas Congress explicitlyrejected the use of numerical quotas and placed the burden ofproof on the government to demonstrate deliberate discriminationby an employer, numerical quotas have been adopted, the burdenof proof has been shifted to the employer, and the requirementof deliberate discrimination has been ignored.The author then considers the need for and the effects of anaffirmative action program in academia. He looks behind coarsecomparisons of black-white and male-female salary differentialsby examining salary differentials for blacks and whites (and malesand females) with comparable training and credentials within thenumerous academic areas of specialization. Holding thesevariables constant, he finds that salaries of black academics equalledor surpassed those of white academics both before the applicationof numerical "goals and timetables" in 1971 and four years after.A similarly careful analysis of male-female salary differentialsfinds no support for the contention that male-female careerdifferences are the result of employer discrimination. The explanation,Sowell suggests, is more likely to be found in social mores thatcause marital and family responsibilities to fall disproportionatelyon women.Thomas Sowell is professor of economics at the University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles, and an adjunct scholar of the AmericanEnterprise Institute, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution on War,Revolution and Peace.