In a message dated 8/13/2003 7:45:32 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > It's interesting that I can agree with much of Mr. Mann's > analysis and believe instead that "colorblind" definitions of > justice and rights are the only fair process. I believe that > if you remove the inherent inequities and discriminatory > polices in the educational system that you will no longer need > to rely on race-based discrimination (affirmative action) > to level the playing field. > I think that there are forms of "colorblind" discrimination which on average produce grossly unequal outcomes for black and white students. The introduction of a curriculum tracking system in the early elementary grades in the late 1950s and early 60s, for example, was recognized by self-identified white supremacists as a way to keep most blacks in their place. Such "colorblind" policies, combined with race-based discrimination in the housing and job markets and elsewhere makes for a very unlevel playing field in the classroom Competition for access to college-bound curriculum tracks.
Employers who advertise themselves as Equal Opportunity Employers are typically required by law to have an affirmative action program. Businesses with a certain number of employees and which have contracts with the federal government fall into that category. The federal government merely requires those businesses to take steps to ensure that they attract qualified job applicants who are members of protected classes, e.g., African-Americans. If African-Americans made up 50% of the pool of applicants for all of the jobs that a company fills, a small percentage of the new hires have to be African-Americans. The last I heard, the "hiring quota" for a protected classes is two standard deviations (a measure of dispersion in a set of data) below its share of the workforce. So if 50% of the qualified job applicants are African-American, for example, and less than 5% of the new hires are black, the employer is not filling the quota. Failure to fill that quota is prima facie evidence of race-based discrimination that could result in the lose of contracts with the federal government. However, these "quotas" generally leave employers a lot of room to pass over qualified black applicants in favor of unqualified and less qualified whites in hiring and promotions. I have seen that happen and it is hard to explain differences in unemployment and wage rates between blacks and whites without considering impact of race-based discrimination. There have been fair employment and housing laws on the books since the 1940s, though they have only been minimally enforced since the late 1960s. Affirmative action programs are the primary mechanism by which fair employment laws are enforced. However, as far as I know, the only allowable means by which covert discrimination can be detected on a large scale is through the fielding of survey teams, such as the black and white survey teams used by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The HUD survey teams gather evidence of discrimination by having team members apply for housing. If a black team member puts in an application to rent an apartment first, and merits a higher rating on the application than the white applicant, but the white applicant gets apartment anyway, you have good evidence of discrimination. HUD gathers a lot of evidence of discrimination in the housing market, but rarely does anything with it. The last big HUD survey of the Twin Cities Housing market showed that race-based discrimination is very widespread. If the City of Minneapolis were to organize job and housing market survey teams on a fairly large scale, and follow-up with legal action against discriminators, I think you would see a big change in the behavior of employers, landlords and real estate agents. That is how one could actually deliver on the promise to desegregate the neighborhoods in Minneapolis and substantially increase employment opportunities for people who are frequently discriminated against due to their race, ethnicity, gender, etc. The organization of survey teams could be done relatively cheaply, especially if job and housing hunters could be recruited as surveyors (until they find what they are looking for) with minimal or no financial compensation. And I think you could find project managers and staffers willing to work on a full time basis for a lot less than the $100,000 or so per year that the school district pays friends of the superintendent for doing comparable work. -Doug Mann TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
