Affirmative Action And It's Role In The United States
...our nation a way to finally address the systemic exclusion of individuals of talent on the basis of their gender or race from opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute. Affirmative action is an effort to develop a systematic approach to open the doors of education, employment and business development opportunities to qualified individuals who happen to be members of groups that have experienced long-standing and persistent discrimination." President Clinton 1999.
The job of affirmative action was to promote fairness in hiring by the federal government and by defense contractors. It traces its origins in President Roosevelt's Executive Order in 1941. The President issued an executive that barred hiring discrimination by defense contractors and established the Fair Employment Practice Committee. President Roosevelt's action was in response to A. P. Randolph's threat of a March on Washington. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower inherited and preserved The Fair Employment Practices Committee. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925 ordering federal contractors to take "affirmative action" measures to achieve fairness in the workplace. And in 1964, the Congress of the United States passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited various kinds of racial discrimination: in public accommodations, discrimination in federally assisted programs, discrimination in employment and discrimination in labor unions.
In 1973, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission won a discrimination suit against AT&T, and, as a result, AT&T agreed to pay $15 million to back pay and to award $23 million to pay raises to Blacks, other racial minorities and women who experienced discrimination. In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the case of DeFunis vs. Odegaard, in which the plaintiff alleged that the affirmative action program at the...
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