Affirmative Action

Key Developments In Affirmative Action

1960

In the Eisenhower Committee’s final report to the president, Vice President Richard Nixon urges the incoming administration of President John F. Kennedy to require federal contractors to use something stronger than passive nondiscrimination to achieve equal employment opportunities . The next year, President Kennedy orders federal contractors to stop discriminating in the workplace and to use affirmative action to ensure employment without regard to race, creed, color and national origin.

1971

In Griggs v. Duke Power Co., the Supreme Court directs that employment qualifications must be related to the job in question and not designed simply to perpetuate racial exclusion.

Civil rights groups pressure Bethlehem Steel to adopt an affirmative action initiative to ensure fairness in the hiring, training and promotion of African Americans.

1973

A suit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission leads AT&T to agree to pay $15 million in back wages and to award $23 million in raises to Blacks, other racial minorities and women who experienced discrimination.

1974

The Supreme court declares moot the case of DeFunis v. Odegaard, in which a graduate of the University of Washington, rejected by his alma mater’s law school, alleged that less qualified minorities were admitted. By 1974, DeFunis was in his third year of law school and the state Supreme Court had already declared the university’s action constitutional.

1978

In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the High court rules that race can be taken into account as one factor in determining admission policies but declared it unconstitutional for a state university to set aside a specific number of positions for a designated group.

Congress passes the Civil Service Reform Act, which calls for immediate development of a minority recruitment program to increase representation of minorities in specific federal job categories.

1980

The Supreme Court, in Fullilove v. Klutznick, rules as appropriate the use of narrowly tailored remedies, such as a 10 percent set-aside for minorities or limited use of quotas to correct past discrimination.

1981

The Justice Department, under President Ronald Reagan, announces it will no longer demand that employers maintain affirmative action programs or that they hire according to numerical racial goals.

1986

The Supreme Court rules in Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, a Michigan case, that "race conscious" hiring is permissible, but there must be convincing evidence of past discrimination.

1989

In The City of Richmond v. J. A. Croson, the High Court rules that state and local governments are limited in reserving a percentage of their business for minority contractors, unless those governments are correcting well-documented past cases of discrimination in the letting of contracts. As a result of the ruling, a long-standing minority set-aside program in Atlanta is struck down.

1990

New York Mayor David Dinkins’ administration establishes the city’s first minority contracting program, following post-Croson rules. Three years later, Rudolph Giuliani becomes mayor and provisions to increase the number of city contracts awarded to minorities and women are eliminated.

1994

The U. S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit declares unconstitutional the University of Maryland’s Benjamin Banneker scholarships for high-achieving Black students.

1995

In California, two White scholars and a state legislator lead a ballot effort to bar the use of gender, race or national origin as criteria for granting special treatment in hiring for public jobs, education and awarding of contracts.

February

An effort similar to the California campaign fails in the Mississippi State Senate. About 22 states, including Washington, consider rolling back affirmative action policies.

Sen. Phil Gramm, of Texas, the first Republican to announce his bid for the presidency, says that on his first day as chief executive, he would abolish federal contract affirmative action programs.

U. S. Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole of Kansas, noting that 62 percent of White men voted Republican in 1994, announces a Republican study of whether affirmative action requirements in federal law should be dropped. Weeks later, Dole says he would introduce legislation barring the government from using affirmative action to benefit "favored groups."

President Clinton orders a review of federal affirmative action programs, intending to protect those policies that work and change or abolish those that don’t.

Summer

The Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on Adarand Constructors v. Pena, a suit filed by a White Colorado contractor who contends a Latino company, because of ethnicity, won a contract for a government highway project, even though the White contractor submitted a lower bid.

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