Affirmative Action future

Diverse affirmative action initiatives have a strong emphasis on removing obstacles, leveling the playing field, and guaranteeing that everyone has an equal chance at employment (Sowell 17). Affirmative action refers to the HRM initiatives mandated by federal laws and decisions intended to combat hiring practices that discriminate against members of minority groups. It requires taking proactive measures to end the pervasive and persistent prejudice, redress its effects in the past, and create systems and practices that prevent discrimination in the future (Strachan, John, and Anne 196). Regarding the goal of affirmative action, there have been differing opinions. Critics of the procedures and practices entailed in Affirmative Action (AA) suggest that removing the traditional barriers to disadvantaged groups could mean compromising the workplace environment and conditions of competition thereby conceding standards of skills. Furthermore, AA practices do not guarantee equal results but rather proceeds with the notion that equality would allow minority groups and races to attain fair representation in the country’s educational institutions and workplaces (Lim 128). Nevertheless, AA remains a powerful program as it remedies past prejudices, and promotes diversity in the workplace. As such, reforms are suggested in the protected classes, the use of AA in the public and private companies, in the government and non-governmental jobs as well as policy reforms in a bid to promote diversity of all races and ethnic groups in different institutions and work places.

The Future of Affirmative Action and its Evolution

AA is necessary in the society to correct past discrimination, address current-day discrimination, and encourage diversity in the society. The Supreme Court of the US acknowledges that affirmative actionis essential in nurturing a legitimate set of leaders in the citizenry’s eyes; it ensures that the selected leaders are obviously qualified and talented people from diverse ethnicities and races (Anderson 89). In the future, as AA evolves, its programs should go beyond recruitment and outreach and rather integrate efforts to avert discrimination by removing barriers to opportunities of equal employment.

Protected Classes in Affirmative Action

Based on nondiscrimination, equal opportunity, and affirmative action, the organizations and institutions need to commit to ensure all classes of individuals are integrating into their programs going into the future (Sowell 22). The protected classes under local, state, and federal statuses of employment discrimination prohibit discrimination grounded upon sex, status with consideration to public welfare, gender expression, color, race, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, creed, ethnic origin or nationality, age, veteran status, disability citizenship status or any other legally protected group.

Private vs. Public Company Affirmative Action Use

Regulations on affirmative action for private firms are categorized under Executive Order 11246, a policy, which the Labor Department of the U.S. enforces (Denhardt, Janet, and Tara 13). President Johnson B Lyndon approved the executive order into law in 1965 with the intent to strengthen the accountability of private employers and to hold to account government contractors to a greater equal employment opportunity standard (Lim 128). For both private and public use, affirmative action comprises four main elements: outreach, analysis, commitment, and record keeping.

In the future, equal opportunities should form the basis in employment for both private and public sector companies. Even before the worker drafts a strategic plan for affirmative action, the leadership of the company should publish its dedication to equal opportunity. The sectors need to accomplish this through integrating their position on equal opportunity in their respective employment manuals and during new employee orientation and in administrative training (Strachan, John, and Anne 198).Furthermore, postings of employees on the bulletin board and job vacancy ads should contain the title “AA/EEO" which suggests that the firm is dedicated to affirmative action and equal employment opportunity.

Specifically, the private entities need to conduct outreach in a bid to attract a diverse pool of competent candidates. Rather than just advertising job vacancies on the most renowned job board, private companies practicing affirmative action should engage in hiring activities, which reach wide and diverse applicants. For instance, they can plan college-hiring events at colleges and universities that have been historically black or they attend seminars for groups having particular dominating demographics such as the Women Lawyers National Association.

In relation to public companies, successful diversity and affirmative action is grounded upon the small daily actions people take at all organization levels. The companies are often guided by diversity initiatives that are inspired by regulations and laws. However, it should be stressed that such processes do not intend to change habits of compliance but rather habits of their hearts (Lim 128). Changing the way individuals act must be supported by changing the policies and processes of the organizations that define the way people operate. No public company can depend simply on transforming its employee’s hearts and minds; it ought to develop a wide range of practices and policies to assist guarantee that the current workplace suits everyone. The HR manager is strategically positioned and exceptionally ompetent to collaborate with all management levels of the organization to address these issues.

Governmental vs. non-government jobs

Government jobs

The original use of AA to improve ethnic diversity happened in 1961 after the executive order by President John F. Kennedy necessitated government employers to integrate affirmative action in the employment of more women and minorities and bringing to an end workplace bias. President Richard Nixon in 1971 trailed in JFK's tracks by commanding all government departments to design a written AA plan (Strachan, John, and Anne 198).Thus, the federal government necessitates that government or non-government businesses with awarded contracts apply AA. The affected firms contract approximately a quarter of American workers, and undertake practices such as infrastructure development to supplying fighter jets, computers to paper towel. To qualify for contracts, companies ought to employ women and minority workers depending on their presence in the competent candidate pool.

The federal government has put up efforts to ensure that in government and non-government companies, all workers ranging from veterans, minorities, women, and the disabled individuals with disabilities are accorded equal opportunities (Sowell 37). Thus, the AA actions done by government jobs in the future should be done in good faith to remedy underutilization, diverse and extensive outreach in the contractual process, conducting job-linked criteria with minimal exclusionary or adverse impact, and impartial assessment of all job candidates.

However, the Public Service would seem to be making strides towards representing the highlighted disadvantaged categories of some groups such as the blacks. For example, studies by Byron (435) demonstrate a mere 38% of Director level managers are black, and just 11% are females. There were just four women Directors-General and very few disabled persons in the government sectors. Improved HRM practices along with efficient affirmative action could redress such imbalances within a comparatively short life span (Anderson 99). Furthermore, achieving numerical balance alone will not be adequate to establish a multi-diverse workforce.

Ideally, the employment practices should ensure that none is discriminated grounded on color, race, sex, gender identity, religion, color, ethnic origin, mental or physical ability, ancestry, medical situation, pregnancy, marital status, veteran status, age, or genetic information. The belief behind the equal opportunities in jobs is that all workers should have similar access to workplace opportunities.

Other cultural differences that could also be considered are the dissimilarities between people of different generations, between the unmarried and the single, between the people with kids and those without and those residing in rural regions and small towns, and the ones residing in the city. Capitalizing the positive gains of these variations is also vital for the creation of a diverse corporate environment.

Non-government jobs

An amendment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is the equal employment opportunity (EEO) Act of 1972. The act bestows powers on the commission of Equal Employment Opportunity to pursue litigation in federal courts against non-government sector jobs/private sector after the commission has established a probable cause of prejudice and failed to get a conciliation contract appropriate to the equal employment commission (Byron 438). Moreover, section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act obligates the non-governmental agencies similar to other agencies) and regardless of their size, to have implemented a plan of affirmative action for the disabled persons. Furthermore, in line with MD-715, non-government agencies having more than 1,000 or more workers to create an exceptional employment program with particular goals for the hiring and development of the disabled people and submit the plan yearly to the commission on equal employment. Consequently, the agencies should set their affirmative action plans in ways that they can attain measurable annual progress accounting for the distribution of workers from all ethnic groups and the disabled ones in the organization’s general labor force.

The non-government jobs should take up specific steps to attain their AA objectives for hiring and developing the individuals that normally face discrimination. Some of the steps include creating numerical hiring objectives for the marginalized workers on an annual basis as necessitated by the law and integrating the particular objectives into the agency’s strategic mission. The organizations should also engage in outreach to target the employment of internal and external diverse applicants. The organizations should use appointment experts to conduct the hiring process of marginal groups such as the disabled among other measures. Significantly, the organization should create plans for training and developing all individuals upon their employment to improve progression and retention.

Constitutional Legitimacy of Affirmative Action

Race-grounded affirmative action has met several legal challenges in the previous two decades. In 2013, the Supreme Court of the U.S. ruled in Fisher v. University of Texas case that colleges ought to substantiate that they are using race to admit students only when needed suggesting that no other approaches could generate similar results (Strachan, John, and Anne 199). Also, in 2006, after two high ranking AA decisions of the American Supreme Court handling AA at the Michigan University, Michigan electors passed a state constitutional prohibition on affirmative action in education, public contracting, and public employment with omissions linked to the federal law. The Supreme Court of the U.S. ruled in a 6/2 plurality decision, that the prohibition was not forbidden by the Constitution of the U.S, therefore, upsetting the appeals of the U.S. Court for the decision of the Sixth Circuit, which established that the ban violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

It appears that the future of affirmative action programs in the country is bleak owing to the constitutional legitimacy. Consequently, the outlook does not seem bright for affirmative action practices in the U.S., which allow preferences grounded on race to Hispanics, blacks, and others in employment, college admissions, and government contracts bidding. Such programs continue being unpopular among the public and they increasing face hostility in the courts. Instead, commentators and courts have been supporting an alternate affirmative action form, which is dubbed the “race-neutral AA.” Affirmative action that is race-neutral endeavors to alter the racial composition of the individuals who gain from government expenditure, employment, or education by granting preferences grounded on attributes, which correlate with race as opposed to granting preferences grounded on race (“racially explicit AA.”) (Lim 128). Thus, the objectives of racially neutral affirmative action are similar as the objective of racially explicit AA, which is to improve the representations of particular racial groups that gain from such opportunities. However, the means differ. Race-neutral AA applies correlates of race as opposed to just race itself. The well-known race-neutral AA program in the U.S. is the Texas 10 % Plan at the Texas University that grants direct admittance to any in-state candidate who graduated in the state.

Reasons against AA

Despite the increased calls to integrate affirmative action in different organizations, the issue has generated controversy from different quarters. Affirmative action is controversial and polls often demonstrate that approximately two-thirds of Americans back AA but about a similar percentage is against racial preferences(Strachan, John, and Anne 196).Some commentators posit that Americans are firm believers in absolute meritocracy-that individuals should lead at business, work and school grounded only on their competitive abilities and performance.

Nonetheless, studies demonstrate that most individuals also optimize their networks; they do not just depend on performance in an Olympics-style competition of pure skill. If the Americans really paid attention so much on pure meritocratic competition, more outcries would be anticipated about the use of social networks. There would also be the complaints about college preferences for alumni’s children or athletes or clamors about small enterprise owners who employ family members, or even opposition to exceptional efforts to employ war veterans for private sector or government jobs (Byron 440). It is difficult to refrain from the conclusion that AA is strangely controversial because it accords an opportunity to excluded groups such as the African Americans as opposed to contravening pure meritocracy norms.

In sum, the objective of affirmative action programs is to break down the barriers in employment and level the playing field by ensuring that all workers are accorded equal chances in employment. However, affirmative action has continued to elicit numerous reactions particularly on its objectives. The processes have been criticized by many Americans in polls who argue that the removal of the traditional barriers could mean compromising the competition factor in organizations leading to low standards in organizations. Furthermore, the process continues meeting opposition even in courts of law. Thus, the processes of affirmative action need to be reformed to ensure that the processes of recruitment and outreach in private, public, government and non-government institutions integrate efforts to avoid discrimination by eradicating barriers to equal employment openings. Most significantly, the federal government has a role of ensuring that all employees ranging from the disabled, the pregnant, veterans, minorities, and women are accorded equal opportunities in the future.

Work Cited

Anderson, Terry H. The pursuit of fairness: A history of affirmative action. Oxford University Press, 2004.

Byron, Reginald A. "Discrimination, complexity, and the public/private sector question." Work and Occupations 37.4 (2010): 435-475.

Denhardt, Robert B., Janet V. Denhardt, and Tara A. Blanc. Public administration: An action orientation.New York: Cengage Learning, 2013.

Lim, Marvin. "Percent plans: A workable, race-neutral alternative to affirmative action." Journal of College and University Law 39 (2013): 127-141.

Riccucci, Norma. Managing diversity in public sector workforces. Colorado, U.S: Westview Press, 2002.

Sowell, Thomas. Affirmative action around the world: an empirical study. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2004.

Strachan, Glenda, John Burgess, and Anne Sullivan. "Affirmative action or managing diversity: what is the future of equal opportunity policies in organisations?." Women in Management Review 19.4 (2004): 196-204.

Swain, Carol M. "Affirmative action: legislative history, judicial interpretations, public consensus." America becoming: racial trends and their consequences 1 (2001): 318-347.