>From: Blade Blade <thegreatblade1789 at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk-digest at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Affirmative Action
>Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 20:30:01 -0700 (PDT)
>
>What is it anyway? What are its provisions? When did
>it start? Was there really reverse discrimination?
>.....com
Affirmative action was vaguely conceptualized by Pres. Johnson, and actually implemented by Pres. Nixon as federal polict pursuant to his 1969 "Philadelphia Plan." It encompasses a variety of programs in educatiobal admissionas and employment designed to give preference to historically underrepresented groups such as women and African Americans. These may range from quotas (forbidden in public institutions at least for race) to "points" given for belonging to a preferred group, to using group membership as a tie-breaker. The three key court decusions are Griggs (employment, race), Johnson (emplyment, women)m and Bakke (education, race). Whether it is discrimination depends on what you mean by that. AA involves taking race or sex into account. On the other hand, although AA disfavors white men, it does not stigmatize them or carry the social meaning that they are inferior. I have a survey of the topic in my paper, A Not Quite Color-Blind Constitution, Ohio State Law Journal (1998). The case law in that paper is several years out of date, of course. jks
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