against the non-white and the non-male. Consequently, affirmative action intrinsically includes the reform of pre-employment testing (Calvert, 1979, p. 267).
The United States has made a long-term commitment not only to reversing the effects of past discrimination, but to taking advantage of the diversity of the American people (United States Commission on Civil Rights, 1981, p. 37). Virtually everyone agrees that the goal of a pluralistic society that cherishes differences among individuals is a good one. Reasonable people disagree, as they are free to do, about best methods for achieving that goal. The main point of controversy centers on the elements of affirmative action programs that provide numerical formulations for addressing racial and ethnic imbalances and imbalances related to gender.
Many different groups oppose the concept of affirmative actions goals or quotas. There are those who see the imposition of quotas for changing the demographic balance at places of employment as a form of "reverse discrimination." American Jewish groups, moreover, have a history of opposing quota systems, because such systems were used to keep them out of institutions. The purpose of affirmative action measures is not to keep certain groups out, however, but to let other groups in to areas of the economy and the society (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1981, pp. 38-39). Criticisms based on the idea that affirmative action programs imply "preferential treatment" for some groups fails to attend to "their purpose as a means to dismantle a process that presently allocates opportunities discriminatorily" (p. 38).
Discrimination of various kinds against various groups is so much a part of the history of the United States that the establishment of specific programs to reverse its effects is virtually essential (Boris and Honey, 1988, pp. 22-26). White men, who held virtually all positions of power in business and government, took for ...