1.Try to demonstrate that you have done the reading, that you can explain it, and that you can connect to the assigned readings for the past 8 weeks.  If you cannot explain it, ask questions until you can. No credit for posts where you say 'colored' when you mean 'people of color', or when you say 'racist' when you mean 'prejudiced'. Copy this question into your post and then answer it:  Write about what you know about affirmative action after completing the assigned readings. What is Affirmative Action, Really? Many people in the U.S. feel strongly about affirmative action.  You can see that if someone thinks that everyone in America is treated as an individual, that racial and ethnic group membership are irrelevant to the way individuals are treated, you can see how such a person would be frustrated by what they perceive to be preferential treatment. You can see how people who see from a multicultural perspective understand that only white people have the privilege of being treated as individuals, and people of color are routinely discriminated against in hiring, in housing, and in school admissions. Misunderstandings about affirmative action almost all originate in the original assumptions that people make. We have spent much of this quarter exploring and clarifying those assumptions. I urge you to keep track of the issues and the assumptions. Some questions to ask yourself before we start: If affirmative action laws, executive orders and policies result in all these people of color who are taking all the jobs, where are they? Are they your teachers? Are they your bosses?  Where are they? How many of you have ever worked for a White boss (raise your hand, OK?) Many of you, right? How many of those bosses were totally competent? Why is it when we speak about a person of color getting a position, it is always some not-as-competent/qualified person who got the job instead of some White person who is always totally qualified?  Can you see the Stereotype, which leads to a Community of Memory? Let’s be clear about this: hiring and school admission has always been based on race and gender. Always. Up until recently the race was White, the gender was male. Let me show you some ‘affirmative action’ statistics, about 30 years after the first mention of affirmative action.  White Males are: 39.2 % of the population 77% of Congress 92% of state governors 70% of tenured college faculty 90% of daily newspaper editors 77% of TV news directors (Newsweek March 29, 1993) Yes, these are dated statistics.  I show them to you deliberately because I want us to pay attention to how slowly our culture changes where race, social class and gender are concerned.  And, I urge you to search for current statistics that are reliable.  I want to ask you again, if there are all these people of color and women who are taking all the jobs, where are they? (none of the data supports the assumption that people of color are taking all the jobs, as I’ll.

1. 1.Try to demonstrate that you have done the reading, that you
can explain it, and that you can connect to the assigned readings
for the past 8 weeks. If you cannot explain it, ask questions
until you can. No credit for posts where you say 'colored' when
you mean 'people of color', or when you say 'racist' when you
mean 'prejudiced'.
Copy this question into your post and then answer it: Write
about what you know about affirmative action after completing
the assigned readings.
What is Affirmative Action, Really?
Many people in the U.S. feel strongly about affirmative action.
You can see that if someone thinks that everyone in America is
treated as an individual, that racial and ethnic group
membership are irrelevant to the way individuals are treated,
you can see how such a person would be frustrated by what they
perceive to be preferential treatment.
You can see how people who see from a multicultural
perspective understand that only white people have the privilege
of being treated as individuals, and people of color are routinely
discriminated against in hiring, in housing, and in school
admissions.
Misunderstandings about affirmative action almost all originate
in the original assumptions that people make. We have spent
much of this quarter exploring and clarifying those assumptions.
I urge you to keep track of the issues and the assumptions.
Some questions to ask yourself before we start:

2. If affirmative action laws, executive orders and policies result
in all these people of color who are taking all the jobs, where
are they? Are they your teachers? Are they your bosses? Where
are they?
How many of you have ever worked for a White boss (raise your
hand, OK?) Many of you, right? How many of those bosses were
totally competent? Why is it when we speak about a person of
color getting a position, it is always some not-as-
competent/qualified person who got the job instead of some
White person who is always totally qualified? Can you see the
Stereotype, which leads to a Community of Memory?
Let’s be clear about this: hiring and school admission has
always been based on race and gender.
Always.
Up until recently the race was White, the gender was male. Let
me show you some ‘affirmative action’ statistics, about 30 years
after the first mention of affirmative action.
White Males are:
39.2 % of the population
77% of Congress
92% of state governors
70% of tenured college faculty
90% of daily newspaper editors
77% of TV news directors

3. (Newsweek March 29, 1993)
Yes, these are dated statistics. I show them to you deliberately
because I want us to pay attention to how slowly our culture
changes where race, social class and gender are concerned.
And, I urge you to search for current statistics that are reliable.
I want to ask you again, if there are all these people of color
and women who are taking all the jobs, where are they? (none
of the data supports the assumption that people of color are
taking all the jobs, as I’ll show you later)
(Some more current data:
the New Congress 2015) (Links to an external site.)
Listen to me: affirmative action laws, executive orders and
policies
NEVER
say you must hire anyone. They say make sure you take bias
into account when you are interviewing. Think about this: If
your boss hires someone who is incompetent, who must do the
work? You, right? And if your boss hires people who are
incompetent, what does that say about you? Does that mean you
are incompetent?
It is a total myth that affirmative action laws say you must hire
a person of color or a woman. The guidelines say try to
interview some people you might not otherwise consider. I sit
on many, many, faculty selection committees, and I am very
careful NOT to hire people in my division who cannot do the
work, because I already know who will have to pick up the
slack: ME. On the other hand, I know that it is to the benefit of
my students to make sure that their professors come from many
different perspectives, because the more perspectives my
students consider, the more educated they will be. So, I try to
make sure the people I interview are as diverse as possible. And

4. that they are qualified. So, I try to follow affirmative action
guidelines. Let me tell you more about affirmative action.
Affirmative action laws, executive orders and policies are based
on this assumption, quoted from Iris Young, federal court judge
and author of the book
Justice and the Politics of Difference
The weight of society’s institutions and people’s assumptions,
habits, and behavior toward others are directed at reproducing
the material and ideological conditions that make life easier for,
provide greater real opportunities to, and establish the priority
of the point of view of white heterosexual men.
You recognize this; we’ve been making this assumption explicit
all quarter. From this assumption, look at the laws, executive
orders and policies which make up affirmative action (contrary
to popular opinion, there isn’t just one law):
The Legal Basis for Affirmative Action: Laws, Executive
Orders, and Policies:
Executive Order 11246
prohibits federal contractors from discrimination in
employment based on race, color, national origin, or sex. To
clarify, prior to this, employment was based on White race,
White color, White national origin, and male sex.
Title VI of Civil Rights Act 1964 prohibits
discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in all
programs/activities receiving federal aid
Title VII Civil Rights Act 1964 prohibits
discrimination in employment, including hiring, upgrading,
salary fringe benefits, pregnancy, training, etc.

5. Title IX Education Amendments 1972
prohibits discrimination based on sex or gender
Equal Pay Act 1963
prohibits discrimination in salaries based on sex.
Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act 1973
sets affirmative action obligations for handicapped individuals
Section 504 Rehabilitation Act 1973
prohibits discrimination based on handicap for all programs
and activities receiving federal funds.
Vietnam-Era Veteran’s Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974
prohibits discrimination based on being either a disabled
veteran or a veteran of the Vietnam era.
There are more recent additions, but those are the basics. Look
at each of these laws, and see which ones you object to. Check
my data. Here are some good websites with accurate
information, lots of clear light, not so much heat:
An affirmative action timeline (Links to an external site.)
so you can see how long we have been working on this issue
Ten Myths about Affirmative Action (Links to an external site.)
Here’s the real deal:
There are so many stereotypes and misconceptions about
affirmative action that we are astonished at how so much
misinformation could be so prevalent. I trace it back to original
assumptions about race and gender. If you believe everyone is
already treated equally, then of course you would be angry at

6. what you perceive to be ‘special treatment’ based on race or
gender. If you believe that White males are given privileges that
cause an corresponding penalty for people of color and women,
then you might be totally in favor of affirmative action.
And, its not just a matter of what we believe; what does the
evidence say?
While we are thinking about that, let’s look deeper at the details
of affirmative action laws, executive orders and policies:
What EXACTLY is Affirmative Action?
There are four different types; I list them in order of most
common to least common:
Aggressive recruiting to expand the pool of applicants for job
openings
Prior to 1965 if an employer in a company had a middle
management position opening,
HE
posted the opening where most of the appropriate people might
see it: On the job board in the Men’s Bathroom. Affirmative
action laws, executive orders and policies made that illegal.
Now most companies can meet their affirmative action
obligations simply by posting openings in the places where
minorities and women say they look for jobs.
Prior to 1965, if an employer had a job opening,
HE
might post it somewhere public for 20 minutes, then when
someone tried to apply for the position, he would say the job

7. was closed, and give the position to his nephew.
Now, companies have to post their job vacancies for a certain
amount of time, say 30 or 60 days. They cannot start the
interview process until the job announcement period has closed.
Many people say this is just good business practice, not
realizing it came about as a result of affirmative action laws,
executive orders, and policies.
Evaluating and updating selection tools and criteria to ensure
their relevance to job performance
Prior to 1965, if you wanted to be one of the people who served
food to passengers on airplanes, and incidentally, wanted to be
responsible for their safety (such people were called
Stewardesses), you had to be female, and between 5’4" and
5’10", and weigh between 115 and 140 pounds.
After 1965, airline companies had to prove that being a female
was somehow a qualification for the job, that there was
SOMETHING airline stewardess had to do that only females
could do (look for the ad campaign "coffee, tea, or me?"). Also,
after 1965, the qualifications said ‘height/weight proportional’,
recognizing perhaps that a woman who is 5’10 and 115 pounds
might be undernourished and might not be in a position to take
responsibility for anyone’s safety.
Revising traditional measures of merit to more fully recognize
talent and performance under varying conditions.
Prior to 1965, fire departments and police departments hired
almost exclusively White and male applicants. After 1965, these

8. agencies had to take into account the fact that White males
might not in all situations be the best person for the job, that
there might be situations in which a female or a person of color
(or both) would be very valuable team members. For example,
firefighters often say that they don’t want to have to go into a
burning building with a woman firefighter, because she might
not be able to carry them out. First of all, the fact that she is a
woman has nothing to do with being able to carry someone out.
Second, if that male firefighter didn’t weigh 220 pounds, he
might not have fallen through the floor in the first place.
Consider a common firefighting scenario: child trapped in very
small space in a burning building. Who is most valuable in this
situation, a 220 pound huge human, or a 120 pound small
human?
After 1965, employers had to demonstrate that their measures of
merit actually take all facets of the job into consideration.
Establishing goals and timetables for hiring underrepresented
groups.
Goals and timetables are not the same as quotas.
Quotas are illegal and have been for over 40 years.
Quotas are only implemented in situations in which a company
has been found guilty in a court of law of a consistent pattern of
hiring discrimination. In such cases, the court MAY impose a
certain quota, for example, hiring one State Patrol officer of
color for every White officer who is hired.
Goals and timetables are a way of keeping track of who would
be naturally in the work force, absent 500 years of oppression
and discrimination. If Native Americans are about 2% of the
population of this community, they should be 2% of the work
force in this community. If African Americans are 12% of the

9. population of the greater Seattle area, they should be 12% of the
work force at Shoreline Community College. Establishing goals
and timetables is the least common type of affirmative action.
OK, let’s keep sorting through this issue:
Notice your own stereotypes and assumptions: Do a Google
Search again on affirmative action and look through a few
sites. Try to determine what their assumptions are. Who are the
authors? What are their political views? Can you understand
why they believe what they believe? Write about your thoughts
and feelings in your notes, and in the Discussion.
2. Write something else, that you learned from the assigned
readings on affirmative action. In this post, try to connect to
what you have learned so far, about race, and gender, and social
class. (Yes, we did write about this before. Let's write some
more ;-)
Session 9.3 Affirmative Action and Higher Education
I know you want to know about affirmative action and higher
education, so let’s get to it.
First, look inside your head, and collect all the ‘stories’ you
know about affirmative action and higher education. Think
about where you heard those stories. Try to hold in your mind
the assumptions of the people who told you their affirmative
action stories. Those who have never heard about affirmative
action, do a little searching, until you get a sense about why
affirmative action is such a culminating example of
monocultural and multicultural perspectives.

10. Affirmative Action and Higher Education
The stories I will tell you come from a multicultural
perspective. Lots of this data is also common sense. In choosing
myths and facts to compare, I’ve tried to present only facts that
were documented with specific data in the links I provided. The
admissions information comes from a variety of sources, but is
easily documented.
Myth
: Affirmative action programs are unfair because they
undermine the meritocratic history and spirit of higher
education
Fact:
Access to higher education has never been based exclusively on
academic merit; colleges have historically and tenaciously
favored those who have influential parents, those with athletic
skills, and white males.
Betsey
: You already know this. You know that most colleges and
universities save a certain number of seats for the children of
alumni, very talented athletes, and until very recently, for white
males. As recently as 1987, the University of North Carolina
was trying to solve the problem of more women than men in the
entering 1st year class by implementing a quota of one woman
for every two men. Harvard had a 40% cap on entering 1st year
women. It’s only when people of color are mentioned that there
is an uproar about preferential treatment (Sadker and Sadker,
Failing at Fairness: How American Schools Shortchange Girls,
1995).
Fact:
Institutions of higher education do not admit students solely of

11. the basis of test scores or high school transcripts but use a range
of information that attests to a student’s unique qualities.
Betsey
: Admissions Officers are trained professionals. They hire a
trained staff. They know that all the available research says that
standardized tests or GPAs do not accurately predict more than
1st year college grades. And tests and GPAs only predict 1st
year grades accurately for White males. They under-predict 1st
year grades for women and for people of color.
Myth
: There is an objectively determined and straightforward
definition of a qualified student.
Fact
: Most institutions have a broad definition of an ideal student
that places strong weight on students’ personal characteristics,
including leadership, overcoming adversity, and unique talents
that might contribute to the educational environment.
Fact
: All candidates, including those admitted with affirmative
action as a consideration, are first evaluated on some acceptable
level of prior academic achievement and future academic and
leadership potential.
Betsey
: Colleges and universities are evaluated by their funding
sources partially on their ability to graduate students in a timely
manner, and on the ability of admitted students to progress
through to a degree with some success. Admissions Officers
don’t want to admit large percentages of students who aren’t
likely to pass most of their courses, or who will take too long to
finish their degrees. Admissions people keep their jobs to the
extent that a large percentage of the students they admit will

12. demonstrate success.
Myth
: the use of race as a factor in college admissions is inconsistent
with the way the admissions process normally works.
Fact:
Race has always been a factor in college admissions. Until very
recently, the race in question was almost exclusively White (and
male).
Betsey
: This myth is phrased in the kind of code called Whitespeak.
When White race is considered in college admissions, it is
business as usual, part of the air that we breathe.
Fact:
Objective and subjective criteria include geographic
representation, mix of specific academic majors, balance of in-
state and out-of-state residents, the number of athletes, and the
mix of race/ethnicity in the student body.
Betsey
: First, let’s talk about geographic representation. It is an often-
told ‘Story’ in Eastern Washington that ‘UW favors students
from Western Washington’ (that’s what they think). So, UW
must make sure in its admissions criteria that it admits an
adequate number of students from Eastern Washington, because
THEY PAY TAXES, partially to support UW. It seems
reasonable to try to balance race and ethnicity for the same
reasons; namely people of color also pay taxes, partially to
support state-supported colleges and universities. Colleges and
universities save a certain number of seats for out-of-state
residents, and international students, because they help to pay
the bills. They also save a few spots for athletes, especially
male athletes, who also help to pay the bills.

13. Myth
: Affirmative action leads to unfair exclusion of many white
students who are then forced to attend second and third choice
schools.
Fact:
The research does not support this myth. Whites do not appear
to be disadvantaged in the admissions process.
Fact:
African Americans and Asian Americans were most likely to
report having to attend second and third choice schools
Fact:
Latino and Native American students are highly concentrated in
community colleges and low-cost institutions with low
selectivity which are close to their respective communities.
What were the original motivations for affirmative action in
higher education?
Public responsibility to provide higher education, in as
inclusive a way as possible, to the citizens of the state.
Social commitment to rectify discrimination against people of
color and women.
Educational theory, now thoroughly tested, that a diverse and
heterogeneous campus provides important educational benefits
for all students.
How has affirmative action affected admissions policies?

14. Admissions committees seek balance in socioeconomic
background, geography, race, gender, ethnicity, alumni ties,
parental wealth and/or fame, academic interests, athletic
prowess, extracurricular activities, and so on
Race is only one of the factors considered about an individual’s
characteristics and achievement when he or she is under
consideration for admission.
What has been the educational impact of affirmative action?
Students report increased cultural awareness, greater sensitivity
to race, and increased familiarity with a range of disparate
cultures and styles.
Students learn that their perspective is not the only way of
understanding a situation.
Diversity of population has made the negotiation of diversity a
fact of public life, and opened important discussions about
understanding and identity and about the forms of trust and
mutual respect required for in a democracy.
3. Copy this question into your post and then answer it: Write
about something you’ve been thinking about, as a result of the
work you have done in this class.