Nevertheless, opinion surveys show that most Americans still support the goal of equal opportunity in employment and education. A recent Gallup poll showed that 73 percent of Americans approve of companies making conscientious efforts to identify and recruit qualified women and people of color. Clearly, then, during the years that we have lived with affirmative action, we have learned its lessons. Most Americans now understand that discrimination is wrong. All people deserve equal access to the means of fulfilling their potential, and equal opportunity to be judged solely on their abilities and on "the content of their character." 

Specific Attacks

While affirmative action is under siege across the country, Senators Bob Dole and Phil Gramm in Washington have taken special aim at it. In July, Senator Dole introduced S. 1085, a bill he called the "Equal Opportunity Act of 1995." The same bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Charles Canady of Florida as H.R. 2128. 

 The Dole bill would make unlawful all forms of affirmative action undertaken by the federal government on the basis of race, color, national origin and gender, and woul prohibit federal civil rights enforcement agencies from seeking or agreeing to administrative or judicial orders prescribing affirmative action to remedy proven instances of discrimination that violate federal law or the Constitution. 

Neither the House or Senate has moved forward on the Dole-Canady bills. But, in a Byzantine twist, Senator Phil Gram of Texas has, in essence, taken the language of the Dole bill and attached it as an amendment to the multi-billion-dollar State, Justice, Commerce appropriations bill. That vast piece of legislation is moving through the Senate right now. 

Talking Points

Affirmative action is not a "quota" system, not "preferential treatment," not a club for bludgeoning employers and educational institutions into accepting unqualified workers and students. It's a strategy for curing what ails our society's institutions, which are still plagued with discriminatory attitudes and practices that exclude millions of qualified and deserving people from the American mainstream. Affirmative action is an instrument of inclusion, a means of bringing all Americans into society's mainstream as equal competitors in the race of life. 

 Affirmative action is still needed. Although women and people of color have come a long way in the decades since the Civil Rights Act was passed, discrimination persists. In 1991, President Bush and Congress appointed a 21-member Federal Glass Ceiling Commission to identify barriers that block the advancement of women and people of color into decision making positions. In March, the commission reported back: "Today's American labor force is gender and race segregated -- white men fill most top management positions in corporations." 

 Affirmative action does not penalize white males. Fairness requires ending biased practices, not perpetuating them, and that includes ending the unjust advantages traditionally enjoyed by whites and white men. The conscientious effort to hire or admit women and people of color is a way for employers and schools to break their habit of favoring whites and males, and a way to facilitate the transition to nondiscriminatory practices. Restructuring a discriminatory status quo to create a nondiscriminatory environment isn't "reverse discrimination," but it may feel that way because something is being lost: White people are losing the favoritism they so long enjoyed in a system that discriminated on the basis of color and sex.