BY LAURA GARZA
From recent Supreme Court rulings to state and federal legislative actions, an offensive against affirmative action is opening up. Democratic and Republican Party politicians are entertaining a spate of proposals to scrap existing programs, testing the waters for how far they can go in a broadside attack on measures aimed at advancing women, Blacks, Latinos, and other oppressed nationalities.

In late February President Bill Clinton ordered an "intense and urgent review" of all government affirmative action programs. When delegates to a state Democratic Party convention in California chanted, "No retreat" on affirmative action, he implored them to consider that, "this is a psychologically difficult time for a lot of white males."

Rulings undercut equal rights
In April, the Supreme Court left standing two lower court rulings undercutting affirmative action programs. One case centered on the Birmingham, Alabama, fire department. In 1974 few Blacks had been hired as firefighters and none were supervisors in an area where the workforce was 28 percent Black. A program was enacted to promote white and Black firefighters on a one-to-one basis until the number of Black lieutenants reached 28 percent, a target that was met in 1989. While no firefighters lost jobs and promotions were delayed in most cases by only a matter of months, 14 white firefighters challenged the plan. They lost initially, but an appeals court found that while the Birmingham government had "compelling" interest in remedying the effects of past discrimination, the plan was not "narrowly tailored" enough and the city should have sought less drastic alternatives.

In a Pittsburgh case, a white engineer, Frederick Claus, challenged a company decision to promote a Black employee. The case stemmed from a Duquesne Light Co. affirmative action program enacted under pressure from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which cited the company's 1987 records showing that only 2 of 82 middle and upper management positions were held by minorities. While the jury determined the Black employee was qualified, which no one challenged, they found the company hadn't properly followed guidelines.

Although neither case is considered a landmark decision, many U.S. companies may take advantage of the Supreme Court's action to drag their feet in implementing programs rectifying past and present discriminatory practices.

The Justice Department has recently weighed in against a program at Illinois State University in Normal designed to train women and minorities as building service workers, mostly janitors. The workforce previously had few women or minorities. The Justice Department is challenging the university because only women and minorities are being considered for the special program. Sixty women and minorities have been hired through this program between May 1987 and January 1991.

In California, where Gov. Pete Wilson has announced a plan to abolish all state boards that monitor and promote affirmative action, there is an attempt to get the legislature to place an initiative against affirmative action on the ballot.

Meanwhile, Clinton has already begun implementing a retreat on several programs. The Justice Department recently advised the Commerce Department not to enact a fellowship program aimed at minority business students. The Office of Federal Procurement Policy is proposing reporting changes that would make it more difficult to know if large government contractors are meeting federal goals for awarding subcontracts to minority companies.

At the same time a series of studies have been released documenting the real status of women, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Indians, and others in the workforce today, highlighting the continued gap in pay and unemployment rates when compared with whites and men.

According to the Census Bureau, in 1993 the median income for Black men employed full time was $23,020 compared to the $31,090 made by white men.

Glass Ceiling report
Evidence of what happens when hiring and promotion decisions are left to the discretion of bosses was the subject of a report studying upper level management released by the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission. The report showed that while women are close to 46 percent of the workforce they represent only 3 percent to 5 percent of top management at Fortune 1000 firms. Two-thirds of the overall population and 57 percent of the workforce is female, of an oppressed nationality, or both, but top management is 95 percent white and male.

However, the report stated, "The overwhelming majority of CEOs interviewed-think of the glass ceiling as something that used to affect women - white and nonwhite - but that is no longer a real problem for them."

The report gives breakdowns in average salaries for managers in a variety of industries. For example, Hispanic males in manufacturing in California have an average annual salary of $41,456 compared to $58,666 for whites; and for females it is $27,773 for Hispanics and $31,662 for whites.

The report also paints a picture of the situation facing those who have historically been most marginalized. The per capita income on the 10 largest reservations of Native Americans was in the ranged of $3,100 to $4,700 annually in 1990. Fifty-six percent of American Indian households earned less than $15,000 per year. Unemployment on reservation and land trust areas was 25 percent.

Black workers are more than twice as likely as whites to be unemployed, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, with the 1993 unemployment rate at 12.9 percent compared to 6 percent for whites, and Hispanics hovering in between the two. For Blacks and Hispanics, one in 10 were employed only part time for economic reasons, compared to one in 20 white workers.

Blacks more likely to be dismissed
Another study noted Black federal employees were more than twice as likely to be dismissed as other workers. While minorities make up 28 percent of the federal civilian workforce, they were 52 percent of those discharged in 1992.

Many of the company officials interviewed by the Glass Ceiling Commission admitted that without federal guidelines they would not enact any of the programs now in place. "If you relieve them of the burden of applying the law, they won't do it," said Bernard Anderson, assistant secretary of labor for employment standards.

The Glass Ceiling Commission issued no recommendations and won't until November. Likewise, while the Clinton administration's review of government affirmative action programs is close to being completed, the White House is in no rush to launch a frontal assault on these hard-fought-for rights. Administration spokespeople have raised the idea that they might set up a bipartisan panel to further study the matter. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Clinton explained that such commissions are good at "helping to resolve contentious issues."

Reflecting similar uncertainty about how far to push, Rep. Newt Gingrich said he would "rather talk about how do we replace group affirmative action with effective help for individuals, rather than just talk about wiping out affirmative action by itself."

The discussion around affirmative action continues on campuses and in the workplace. Students in California, where some of the most severe attacks are being talked about by Democratic and Republican Party politicians, have begun organizing meetings, debates, and some marches to defend affirmative action programs. In New Jersey, at Princeton University, students occupied the president's office April 20- 21. They demanded tenure for professors in Asian-American and Hispanic studies, more materials on those subjects in the library, and a center for ethnic studies.

At Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, about 200 students demonstrated April 12 to demand an Asian-American studies program, and more than a dozen students began a hunger strike to press their fight. Seventeen percent of Northwestern's undergraduates who are U.S. citizens are Asian- American.  
 
 
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