Affirmative Action History (Federal)

1960s during the call for integration (based on the Equal Protections Clause)
Government took an active role in attempting to integrate schools
Supreme Court held that after schools showed that they had integrated and had
eliminated remainders of past discrimination to a certain extent
The Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education interpreted Title VI to
require schools and colleges to take affirmative action to overcome the effects of
past discrimination and to encourage voluntary affirmative action to attain a
diverse student body,
Myth: Affirmative Action has no legal basis.
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act has a remedial scheme that rests largely on
judicial power to order monetary damages and injunctive relief, including such
affirmative action as may be appropriate
Congress and the Executive branch approved laws/regulations that authorized
race-based strategies to promote minority opportunity in jobs, education and
government contracting
Official approval of affirmative action remedies was further codified by federal
regulations construed the act, which prohibits racial or ethnic discrimination in
all federally assisted programs and activities
Title VI regulation permits a college/university to take racial/national origin into
account when awarding financial aid if the aid is necessary to overcome effects of
past institutional discrimination
By the mid-1980s, the Supreme Court had approved the temporary remedial
use of race-conscious selection criteria by private employers under Title VII
They were seen as a proper remedy for manifest racial imbalance in
traditionally segregated job categories, if voluntarily adopted by the employers
or for entrenched patterns of egregious and longstanding discrimination by the
employer, if imposed by judicial decree
Myth: Affirmative Action can be applied anywhere.
the Court required proof of remedial justification rooted in the employers own
past discrimination and its persistent workplace effects. Thus a firm basis in
evidence, as revealed by a manifest imbalanceor historic, persistent, and
egregious underrepresentationof minorities or women in affected job
categories was deemed an essential predicate to preferential affirmative action.
Of equal importance, all racial preferences in employment were to be judged in
terms of their adverse impact on identifiable non-minority group members.
Under strict scrutiny
Myth: Affirmative Action is the quota system where employers or admission
officers saved a certain amount of slots for people who belong to a minority
group.
affirmative action preferences, however, had to be sufficiently flexible,
temporary in duration, and narrowly tailored to avoid becoming rigid quotas