CHAPTER ONE
HISTORY AND DEFINITION OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The acceptance or rejection of affirmative action as a means to achieving the purpose of having the minorities in political, education and professional sector is dependent on the indept understanding of the concept. Thus, this chapter is set to discuss the various definitions of affirmative action and the history of affirmative action, that is, how and why it came about.
1.1 WHAT IS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?
Affirmative action has various definitions as offered by different philosophers, and here, I shall give a few.
‘“Affirmative action” is a term familiar to most Americans but one not always well understood. Over time, it has signified a variety of strategies designed to enhance employment, educational, or business opportunities for groups, such as racial or ethnic minorities and women, who have suffered discrimination’1.
This definition of affirmative action, as is the most general definition, views affirmative action as a measure put in place to reward those who were at the receiving end of the evil of discrimination: affirmative action is put in place on the platform of employment, that is, they are given special preference when they request for a job, on the political platform, that is, they are given a number of slot(s) or seat(s) to contest for political positions or to occupy a particular ministerial post (as is the case in Nigeria), thus, before others will be considered, these ones that are recipient of affirmative action will first be considered.
‘Affirmative action means positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in the areas of employment, education and culture from which they have been historically excluded’2.
‘Affirmative action is a policy of favoring qualified women and minority candidates over qualified men or nonminority candidates, with the immediate goals of outreach, remedying discrimination, or achieving diversity, and the ultimate goals of attaining a colorblind (racially just) and gender-free (sexually just) society’3.
This definition goes a little bit beyond what the general definitions of affirmative action provided. While the general definition did not specify as to whether the minorities and women that are favoured under affirmative action actually qualify for the employment position or the academic admission that they received or they do not, but just because they were victims of discrimination, one is quick to conclude that these people were actually given this position not because they qualify but because they were victims. Thus, the criticism of ‘mediocrity’, that is, that those who do not qualify for a position were given and so they will not see any reason to better themselves, stands against affirmative action in this light.
However, this definition of affirmative action emphasizes that those who were even given special preference themselves are qualified for the position in which they are being considered or preferred, for example, if the least of qualification that is to be considered for a job is bachelors degree, then before anyone can be considered, be it women or the minority group, they must actually possess a bachelors degree certificate. Thus with this definition, affirmative action is more easily defended.
‘An affirmative action program is designed simply to put an end to an existing discriminatory practice, and to create, possibly for the first time in a particular setting, a truly equal opportunity environment, and it can attempt to compensate for past discrimination and the effects of that discrimination’4.
This definition also adds something to the definition, although it also talks about the fact that it compensates those who suffered the effects of discrimination in the past, but it sees affirmative action as a method that can be used to promote equality in opportunity that is available. This means that the way in which those who suffered discrimination in the past are compensated by giving them equal opportunity as those who are of the majority group.
Social scientists NijoleBenokraitis and Joe Feagin defines it thus:
‘Affirmative action means more than passive nondiscrimination. It means that various organizations must act positively, affirmatively and aggressively to remove all barriers, however informal or subtle, that prevents access by minorities and women to their rightful places in the employment and educational institutions of the United States’5.
‘Affirmative action is a term that in a broad sense encompasses any measure, beyond a simple termination of discriminatory practice, adopted to correct for past or present discrimination or to prevent discrimination recurring in the future’6.
‘Affirmative action is not just public policy or political and legal history: it also represents a social and cultural struggle over whether there should exist a property value in whiteness and if equality should be really equal’7.
‘Affirmative action in reality represents a compromise fusion of disparate social and legal elements brought into being by the black protest tradition against white privilege’8.
This definition traces affirmative action to its root, that is, that affirmative action arose as a response to the protests of the blacks against the privilege given to the whites.
Affirmative action is literally the practice of “acting affirmatively”: taking positive, specific steps to overcome the history and current practice of discrimination by having employers, schools, and government contractors make a special effort to include people of color and women in predominantly white and/or male workforces, student bodies, and businesses receiving government contracts9.
In summary, in all of these various definitions, the motive for affirmative action is one and the same, thus, affirmative action is such that create a society in which there is equal opportunity available to every citizen, regardless of gender, race or colour. However, affirmative action, in doing this, first has to give special preference to the gender and race that has hitherto been wronged.
1.2 HISTORY OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Every policy that exist or that holds in a society has its beginning and has some situation that brought it into being. Affirmative action as a policy also has a/some situation(s) that brought it into being.