1. Even before the Supreme Court's mixed signals over the last few years, the rhetoric on affirmative action from all quarters had begun to go off the wall. Yet no matter how much you steel yourself for extremes, the shocks lie in wait even in what one thinks of as the more balanced media. - So you open your morning NYT , for instance, only to read that all the counry needs to set things right is "to finally reverse affirmative action and return to true color blind fairness in the U.S." (NYT, 2/16/95, UC Hayward, anthro, Glynn Custred.)
But even where you expect to find more balanced or even counter arguments to conservative orthodoxy, the assault is sustained. In the most recent issue of Dissent af/a is equated with "the suicide of American liberalism." American transcultural humanism and cosmopolitanism, we are told, have been abandoned and an artificial, Black/Hisp dependent middle class sits on top of inner cities. But worry not, Hisps will soon turn against Blacks within this racial spoils system. Thus no solutions are in view until all race preferences are abolished. (Michael Lind)
Recent surveys among whites indicate that they seriously underestimate their own numbers in the population and perceive others as twice or more their actual presence. The demographic conditions they feel subjectively will not become reality except in scattered locales for another several decades. Similarly, fewer than 2% of all college scholarships are now set aside for African Americans (a practice never challenged when these were set up by contributors for European nationality or religious groups). Yet these are now seen as divisive and contrary to constitutional norms. In CA. where the AF/a controversy rages at fever pitch, 1.8 % of all faculty in the state system are Afro, 2% Hispanic. While research piles up documenting the marginal predictive power of test scores on performance within and especially beyond the college setting, the outcry escalates to have these count as the primary criterion of merit in admissions and financial aid.. What these scores seem to correlate with best, however, is the income of parents. At the same time, time-worn eugenics arguments are invoked to impute genetic bases for intelligence, criminal and other behaviors as well as cultural practices. Blaming victims becomes a form of exonerating the state and key institutions for growing inequality. Pell grants , said to constitute a drain of millions in federal funds through fraud, waste and abuse by for profits trade schools and colleges, provide another target for conservative outrage.
2. More objective accounts in the above mentioned issue of Dissent maintain that af/a gains have been modest but real and won at little cost to whites. (Martin Kilson) Af/a, he says, is working, still needed, and benefits the whole society. This is a balanced and fairly well documented view though clearly under siege. In the course of '95, af/a has become an increasingly explosive, divisive issue. While academic studies point to continued need and modest effects, polls highlight intensifying popular opposition. Af/a's coffin is manifestly a Republican plank. What people are beginning to call California's Civil Wrongs Initiative, now scheduled to be put to voters in November, 1996, is seen as a device to bypass whatever legislative or judicial obstacles may remain to erasing affirmative action from the state policy arena. Nineteen states are said to have parallel referenda in the offing. These would generally ban preferential treatment for minorities in any state program. Even in CA., however, one hears strong reassurances, especially from a number of state system chancellors (Berkeley, e.g.) that court decisions and new legislation will not cut off continued efforts to combat discrimination and promote educational advance for disadvantaged.
Others contend that downplaying race and accenting class concerns will put programs for greater equity on a more popular footing though most acknowledge that without facing race, ethnic and gender dimensions of existing inequality little will be accomplished. In any case, fighting racial/ethnic discrimination remains technically a legal federal mandate. Still, some sympathetic to af/a feel that there are just too many groups riding the choo-choo for preferential treatment, going as far as to assert that the only excluded group at present is the emergent white male minority in a few cities and states. In any case, it has become clear to many, as some have argued for many years, that it is macro-economic processes rather then the nuts and bolts of af/a operations that are at the heart of growing social polarization and contention and therefore hold the key to long term solutions. Can a society effectively address grave social issues while isolating or keeping at the margin growing sectors of those most directly affected by its shortfalls? At a well attended conference of the American Council on Education in Kansas City last week, a major initiative took shape to launch a nationwide movement in defense of Af/a. Mobilizing campus constitutencies is a major objective, and I'll be saying more about that in closing.
3. A few words now on the distinctive situation of Latinos in this context:
a.. We are largely seen as newcomers and free riders though the vast majority of 27 million plus Hisps in the country are U.S. born, citizens or legal immigrants. There is a parallel history of executive, legislative and judicial actions as well as resistance, evasion and contestation by Hisps that we need to document and bring forward along with that of Afro-Americans. A recent conference sponsored by the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago set out to promote African American/Latino academic and policy collaborations, and there is more information about that in the packets I have distributed here.
b. Perhaps more than in other instances, Latinos must pay attention to details of context: i.e., demographics, national origin, generations, labor market placement, gender, language and culture, home country ties, human capital endowments, political placement, etc., but especially to the specific institutional order within which af/a is being applied: community colleges, universities, private vs, public sector jobs, housing, health, banking, environment, voting,... For example, a current LA RASA Report from Colorado pinpoints five areas in which af/a is urgently demanded in that state
(1) Political leadership -- only 6 out of 100 state legislators were Latino + 3 Afro and one Asian).
(2) Occupations - whites dominate positions in major professions ranging from 57 to 83 percent among engineers, architects, lawyers and judges, etc.
(3) Minority firms sharing in the construction of the new Denver airport range from 8% for Latinos to 2% for Native Americans. 81% of participating firms were held by white males.
(4) For every $1.00 earned by white males, Latinos earned .69 cents, Afros .72, Native Americans .73, and Asians .86. Women earned .68.
(5) Home mortage loan rejections were twice the white rate for Latinos and three times that rate for Afros.
The newsletter defines the various modes of discrimination behind these patterns --individual, organizational, structural, tokenism, stigmatization -- all devices visibly in play in the Colorado setting..
c. Our own IUPLR has been promoting research, analysis and active policy crafting on this plane for more than ten years in sync with other like minded groups, especially OPEN MIND in higher education. Concretely,
(1) A '93 New Orleans conference endorsed the formation of a working group on the political economy of higher education. Direction of the group was lodged with Camille Rodriquez at CUNY and Maria Canino at Rutgers. A principal undertaking was litigation by a committee of concerned scholars (faculty and students) against the Governor, the State Board of Regents and the State Legislature for inequities in the funding of CUNY versus SUNY. The case was recently dismissed as lacking evidence of intent to discriminate on the part of state officials. It will be appealed.
(2) The group also spawned an international team residency at the Rockefeller Foundation conference center in Bellagio, Italy last December. Participants from Puerto Rico, Cuba and Mexico were present. The pressures for change in the university are world-wide. Not just in the main countries of origin of U.S. Latinos but throughout the hemisphere, budgetary constraints and mandates to be more responsive to market and economic objectives and performance standards are being pressed on academic institutions.
(3) Latino educational attainment in their respective countries of origin and in the U.S. has varied considerably. In 1990 roughly three-fifths of Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Central Americans had high school diplomas or some college compared to 83% of non-Latino whites. The Mexican origin group lagged behind all others with only 45% holding secondary school credentials. A parallel distribution is observed among those with bachelor's degrees or beyond -- Cubans (18.4%), and
Central Americans (16%) are approximately twice as likely to have achieved this level as Puerto Ricans (8.4%) or Mexicans (6.1%) compared with a white nonLatino rate of nearly a fourth. "Improvements have been made in closing the gap in middle educational levels, i.e., high school completion and some college. Yet in the more rewarding college completion and post graduate levels, Latino are dropping further ....... The growing difference in relative educational structures between race/ethnic groups, particularly at the upper and lower educational levels has an even greater impact on income inequality due to shifting returns to education for each group. Real wages for a given level of education, or returns to education, are generally falling for the lower and middle educational levels and increasing only at the upper levels. Real incomes of college educated Latinos, though still well below those of their white peers, are rising as fast as comparable white incomes. However, real wages of the middle and lower educated Latinos are falling faster. Under these circumstances, gradual improvements in average education are no longer a guarantee of increasing income." (Citations from Stanford economist Michael Carnoy, long active in IUPLR task force on Latinos in the U.S. economy: Faded Dreams, Cambridge University Press, 1994) In this situation, Af/A or any other measures promoting inclusion and equity take on more and more importance.
4. Just a month ago in Wash., D.C., IUPLR opened up some new vistas in affirmative action in a broad policy forum with the publisher of Hispanic Business, Jesus Chavarria, and the magaz:ine's Board of Economists along with several Hispanic entrepreneurs and other corporate officials. Most directors of IUPLR affiliated centers were also present
(a) Latino business folk are feeling the need for more research as well as clarification of legal, ethical and human rights principles related to Af/a. The July report of the Bureau of National Affairs Commission to President Clinton rejected quotas but reaffirmed the need to enlarge the pool of eligibles for federal programs and redefine performance criteria. Yet' discrimination and exclusion remain widespread in the corporate sector. 0.4% of senior Fortune 1000 & 500 executives are Latinos.
(b) Two recent surveys by the magaz:ine indicate that 3/4 of the Latino businessmen reached claimed to be receiving some benefits via Af/A. About a third said they were getting half of their contracts via Af/a. Still, the general feeling is that there are many abuses and 60% of federal contracts are going to big corporations as against 10% each to women and minorities. Other research points to major gaps in the operations of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance, which has one compliance officer for every 250 contractors. According to this study, it would take 46 years at the present pace to review all contracts once. 32 out of more than 250,000 contractors have been debarred since 1972-4 in the Reagan and 3 in the Bush administrations. 20 of these have been reinstated. Doesn't sound like a heavy hand by government, but such programs are still depicted as offensively intrusive and not worth the modest positive effects.
(c) A bill introduced by Senator Dole in July basically bans quotas and preferential treatment in all federal programs but symbolically upholds sanctions against discrimination with a strong eye on "reverse" discrimination. It is a national legislative counterpart to California's Civil Wrongs Initiative.
Finally, an important recent report by the Southern Education Foundation defends historically Black colleges and universities as well as those traditonally serving Hispanics in formerly segregated states from the menace of dismantling, urging that these institutions be given the time and resources to diversify. The litigation around this issue (Fordice) is a prime example of effective Black/Latino collaboration around Af/a issues in which the Mexican American Legal Defense has played a leading role. It should be seen in connection with the recent UIC Chicago effort mentioned above promoting this kind of partnership in all social arenas. The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund has also just announced a December colloquium on affirmative action strategies as well as hearings on Language rights in New York's Municipal Council programmed for November 17. No falta que hacer.. I hope many of you will find ways to get into the action!