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Measuring the impact of affirmative action is difficult and controversial. Some critics argue that worldwide the record of affirmative action has been disastrous, even driving some societies to civil war (e.g., Sri Lanka), but given the history of ethnic and racial conflict in societies where affirmative action has been introduced, it is not simple to isolate cause and effect.

Most U.S. studies agree that affirmative action has redistributed jobs, college admissions, and government contracts from white males to minorities and females, though only to a small extent. A more substantial shift occurred in minority enrollments at elite colleges and universities and in graduate programs, law schools, and medical schools.

Critics claim that departure from the principle of merit led to positions being filled by less-qualified people, with a corresponding loss of quality and efficiency in the economy. Most studies found no evidence of weaker performance by women relative to men in those sectors of the economy with mandated affirmative action. And though substantial evidence exists that minorities have weaker credentials than whites, their actual performance is only modestly weaker. On the other hand, some counterbalancing benefits also occur, such as many minority doctors locating their practices in poor and underserved communities, leading to a gain in the nation's health care.

Opponents argue that affirmative action is harmful to its supposed beneficiaries by creating a "mismatch" between the skills of minority employees and students and the skills that their positions require. For example, one study found that affirmative action reduced the number of African American lawyers because minority students admitted through affirmative action did worse in law school (and then drop out or fail the bar exam) than they would have if they had gone to easier law schools where they had not received admissions preferences. Critics of this study challenge it on methodological grounds, finding that affirmative action actually increased the number of African American lawyers. Also contradicting the mismatch hypothesis is the fact that blacks who attend elite colleges and universities (where affirmative action is most prevalent) have higher graduation rates and greater future success than do those who attend less competitive institutions.

Another way in which affirmative action is said to harm beneficiaries is psychologically, on the grounds that those admitted into schools or jobs on the basis of preferences are likely to suffer in terms of self-esteem or ambition. Others view them as not really qualified, and worse yet, they may view themselves that way as well. Supporters of affirmative action reply that white men did not feel undeserving during the years of open discrimination, even though they earned their credentials in a contest where many of their competitors were severely handicapped. Although some minority individuals may wonder whether they got their position based on color-blind credentials or because of preferences, unemployment and lack of promotion are surely more serious blows to anyone's self-esteem. As for stigmatization, stereotyping the abilities of subordinated minorities and women long predated affirmative action. Limited survey data suggest that blacks (male and female) and white females at firms with affirmative action programs do not have any lower scores on various psychological variables than their peers at other firms and that blacks at affirmative action firms have more ambition than blacks at other firms.

In the United States, legislation was passed in the aftermath of the Civil War to affirmatively assist African Americans, but with the end of Reconstruction, raceconscious measures were enacted exclusively for the purpose of subordinating blacks. Much of the ensuing struggle for civil rights involved attempts to remove legal impediments to equal rights; these efforts culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The first official use of the term affirmative action was in 1961, when President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925, requiring that federal contractors not only pledge nondiscrimination but also "take affirmative action to ensure" equal opportunity. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson promulgated Executive Order 11246, establishing the Office of Federal Contract Compliance to enforce affirmative action requirements. In a speech at Howard University, Johnson explained the rationale for such programs: "You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains, and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line, and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others.'" In 1967, Executive Order 11246 was expanded to cover women. The 1969 "Philadelphia Plan" under President Richard Nixon required government contractors to set numerical goals for hiring minorities, particularly in the construction industry where blacks long experienced exclusion from labor unions.

Court challenges to affirmative action resulted in rulings that often left the question unsettled. In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978, a divided Supreme Court ruled that a medical school could not set aside a fixed number of seats for minority applicants, but it could use race or ethnicity as a plus factor in admissions. The next year, in United Steelworkers v. Weber, the Supreme Court allowed private companies to enact affirmative action programs for the purpose of overcoming traditional patterns of racial segregation. And in 1980, in Fullilove v. Klutznick, the Supreme Court upheld the setting aside of 10 percent of government public works funds for minority-owned businesses. Adecade later, however, a more conservative court narrowed the scope of permissible affirmative action; while agreeing that strict color blindness was not required, the court--in City of Richmond v. Croson in 1989 and Adarand Constructors v. Pena in 1995--held that affirmative action programs must serve a compelling government interest and be narrowly tailored to meet that interest.

In 1996, voters in California passed Proposition 209, outlawing race-conscious programs in any state institution, thus ending affirmative action in the state's college and university system. At California's top universities, black enrollment declined from 6.6 percent in 1994 to 3.0 percent in 2004. In two cases decided in 2003, Grutter v. Bollinger and Granz v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court affirmed that race or ethnicity could be considered as one admissions factor among many others, provided that it was not done in a mechanistic way.

Bibliography:

1) Anderson, Terry H. 2004. The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action. New York: Oxford University Press.

2) Bowen, William G. and Derek Bok. 1998. The Shape of the River: The Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

3) Boxill, Bernard R. 1992. Blacks and Social Justice. Rev. ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

4) Crosby, Faye J., Aarti Iyer, Susan Clayton, and Roberta A. Downing. 2003. "Affirmative Action: Psychological Data and the Policy Debates." American Psychologist 58(2):93-115.

5) Eastland, Terry. 1996. Ending Affirmative Action: The Case for Colorblind Justice. New York: Basic Books.

6) Ezorsky, Gertrude. 1991. Racism and Justice: The Case for Affirmative Action. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

7) Holzer, Harry J. and David Neumark. 2006. "Affirmative Action: What Do We Know?" Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 25(2):463-90.

8) Kahlenberg, Richard D. 1996. The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action. New York: Basic Books.

9) Livingston, John C. 1979. Fair Game? Inequality and Affirmative Action. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.

10) Thernstrom, Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom. 1997. America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible. New York: Simon & Schuster.

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