An unusually large number of Californians say they have no opinion on Proposition 209, the so-called “anti-affirmative-action” measure. Many of them believe the result will be bad whether the proposition wins or loses. They may well be right — but one voting alternative still makes more sense than the other.
All Jewish agencies supported California’s first civil rights law against discrimination in employment. We believed that the law would not only open up opportunity for others, but also for Jews who were still excluded from many management jobs.
But we were quickly disillusioned. Little seemed to change. The department stores in San Francisco, for example, still did not have a black face in evidence, even in fairly low-level jobs. And many corporations in the state still refused to place qualified Jews in management jobs.
Asked why they were not complying with the law, the stores said, “The unions won’t let us.” The unions said, “The stores won’t let us.” And on all sides we heard, “Gee, how do you know we’re not complying?” and “Golly, those people don’t apply for jobs here.”
Whiplashed by the maneuvers that kept the law from working, we enacted a couple of “affirmative action” requirements, which the Jewish community fully supported. First, employers were told to look and advertise for qualified members of traditionally excluded groups, most of whom did not apply because they had been led to expect rejection. Second, employers were required to keep records to check on the need for more proactive programs to find qualified applicants.
Equal employment for qualified applicants became the order of the day only after that kind of affirmative action happened. But then some business leaders and politicians decided that automatic quotas and preferential hiring would be easier. However, economic entitlement by group ancestry turns the American idea of individual achievement on its head. An overwhelming proportion of Americans, of Jews — and, indeed a majority of African-Americans — say they are opposed to automatic quotas. They want America to stick by the principle of equal opportunity to compete.
On a very different track, however, another understanding grew: For several groups, the exclusion had been so long and deep that the educational and cultural ability to compete equally was often fatally stunted. Certain affirmative action programs were therefore put into place, not to create noncompetitive group entitlement, but to help individuals in disadvantaged groups to compete on an equal basis.
One small example: special programs to improve the standard of English for many young blacks who, because of long imposed ghettoization, have become accustomed to a dialect known as “black English.” Whatever its cultural value, many black educators recognize that the exclusive use of that kind of English impedes equal competition. But like other programs to improve competitiveness, such workshops would necessarily target certain groups and therefore be frowned upon by Prop. 209. One of the authors of the proposition privately admitted it would have been better if such legitimate programs had been explicitly exempted.
For those opposing quotas and preferences but favoring legitimate affirmative action, it might seem that “heads we lose, tails we lose.” But there is a difference between the two options.
If Prop. 209 wins, it will constitutionally and permanently chill the kind of affirmative action needed to help many young people compete equally. But if Prop. 209 loses, it will still be possible to actively push the courts and the public officials to do what many of them have already begun to do: eliminate the quota-like mass preferences.
Consequently, we are left with little choice but to follow the lead of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, which opposes preferences and also says no to Prop. 209. Holding our noses, we need to do the same.