Now more than ever, college campuses are retooling their admissions guidelines and hiring practices to follow the policy of affirmative action. Since the University of Michigan affirmative action victory in the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this summer, factors such as ethnicity and gender are guaranteed consideration during the search for talent in the workplace and the classroom.
However, there are many opponents to affirmative action who believe that the policy gives preferential treatment to unqualified candidates and is “reverse racism.”
Affirmative action today is corrective action aimed at eliminating discrimination in businesses and social institutions, providing equal opportunity for access for jobs and admission to higher education. It is not setting aside jobs or guaranteeing admission to college for minority groups.
In the 1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case, the Supreme Court ruled that schools could not offer a system of quotas to guarantee admission for minorities, but colleges and universities could use minority status as a factor for admissions. So, the notion that someone is guaranteed a position at a college based solely on their status as an underrepresented minority has not been applicable for 25 years.
These corrective policies have become a standard in hiring and admissions practices nationwide and ETSU is no exception when it comes to affirmative action. ETSU actually has an affirmative action officer, Mary Jordan, working in the president’s office.
Though she was unavailable for interview, I recently discussed the implementation of affirmative action with William Coleman, associate vice president for human resources at ETSU.
While many affirmative action policies use the word “minority” in their language, it does not name particular minority groups.
Coleman defined minorities in the context of hiring practices as “underrepresented groups within a discipline.”
So, not only can women seek equal consideration for a job in a male-dominated field, affirmative action could also provide equal opportunity for men seeking positions that are predominantly held by women.
One myth about affirmative action that Coleman quickly dispelled was that unqualified people get preferential treatment over qualified applicants in ETSU’s hiring practices.
“We ensure that the search area for qualified candidates has a representative audience. Within this pool of qualified applicants, we make our selection,” Coleman stated.
Another myth is that affirmative action only benefits African-Americans. Actually, women have benefited far more from affirmative action than any other demographic group. Since the 1960s, enrollment for women in law and medical schools has skyrocketed.
When asked what the effects would be if ETSU were to not follow affirmative action policies in hiring, he replied, “Without actively working to expand the pool of qualified candidates to include underrepresented groups, I have no doubt that diversity on this campus among faculty and staff would be rapidly lost.

Author