RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE WORK FORCE

This research reviews the issue of racial discrimination in the work force in the United States. The emphasis in this research is placed on discrimination against African Americans as numerically they are the largest racial minority group in the American population.

Affirmative action generally requires a firm to focus on legal requirements associated with recruitment, hiring, promotion, and dismissal. Affirmative action legislation in the United States at both the federal and state levels of government establish guidelines for the development and implementation of social policy with respect to equal employment opportunities and with respect to the rectification of past acts of employment discrimination against selected population groups. Income distribution objectives, laws prohibiting social discrimination, and, in some instances, policies intended to rectify the effects of past discriminationaffirmative action goalshave all become a part of "the rules of the game" for American business. Equal opportunity and fair employment practices legislation has been enacted and enforced (with varying degrees of vigor, depending upon the philosophical stance of the administration in power) since the early 1960s.

In theory, government regulation designed to eliminate employment discrimination should have no adverse impacts on business and industry, for in theory discrimination between individuals in r

ied. Thus, affirmative action orders often have detrimental impacts on the productivity and the profitability of individual firms, as well as on the quality of output, total output, and productivity of the American economy. In theory, employment discrimination regulation has a sound basis. In practice, however, the proponents of such legislation, having found that the elimination of discrimination on the basis of sex, racial or ethnic background, religious preference, or age would not result in the representation of individuals with these characteristics in all types and levels of employment and in all compensation levels in the same proportions as such individuals are found in the general population, have begun to demand an equality of outcome, as opposed to an equality of opportunity. The equality of outcome concept if implemented, as opposed to the equality of opportunity concept, likely will have adverse impacts on both the shortrun and on the longrun profitability of business and industry, as well as on the economic and the social health of the country. Problems Encountered By Qualified African American Women A major problem confronting female, African American educational administrators on predominantly white colle

Category: Business - R