AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

in the United States, an active effort to improve employment or educational opportunities for members of minority groups and women. Affirmative action was undertaken by the government to remedy the effects of past discrimination against such groups. It consists of policies, programs, and procedures that give preferences to minorities and women in job hiring, admission to institutions of higher education, the awarding of government contracts, and other allocations of social benefits. The main criteria for affirmative action are race, gender, ethnic origin, religion, and age. Affirmative action was originally undertaken by President Lyndon Johnson's administration in order to improve opportunities for blacks while civil-rights legislation was dismantling the legal basis for discrimination against them. The federal government began to institute affirmative action policies under the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and an executive order in 1965. Businesses receiving federal funds were prohibited from using aptitude tests and other criteria that tended to discriminate against blacks. Affirmative action programs were monitored by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Affirmative action was subsequently extended to cover women, American Indians, Hispanics, and other minorities and was extended from businesses to colleges and universities. By the late 1970s the use of racial quotas and minority set-asides had led to court challenges of affirmative action as a form of "reverse discrimination," usually against white males. The most important such challenge was in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that fixed quotas may not be set for places for minority applicants for medical school if white applicants are denied a chance to compete for those places. While outlawing such quota programs, the court, however, also maintained that professional schools may consider race as a factor in making decisions on admissions. In Fullilove v. Klutznick (1980), the court upheld the federal law requiring that 10 percent of funds for public works be allotted to qualified minority contractors. The Supreme Court began to seriously restrict affirmative action in 1989. In several decisions that year the court gave greater weight to claims of reverse discrimination, outlawed the use of minority set-asides in cases where prior racial discrimination could not be proved, and placed stricter limits on states' use of racial preferences than it did on the federal government. In Adarand Constructors v. Pena (1995), the court placed stricter limits on federal affirmative-action programs, stating that they were unconstitutional unless they fulfilled a "compelling governmental interest." Opposition to affirmative action in California culminated in the passage in 1996 of the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI, or Proposition 209), which prohibited all government agencies and institutions from giving preferential treatment to individuals based on their race or sex. The U.S. Supreme Court in effect upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 209 in November 1997 by refusing to hear a challenge to its enforcement. Legislation similar to Proposition 209 was subsequently proposed in other states.