Presidents And Affirmative Action :: essays research papers

Presidents and Affirmative ActionIn 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11246 at HowardUniversity that required federal contractors to undertake affirmative work toincrease the number of minorities that they employ. He wanted to ensure thatminorities were recruited to have real opportunities to be hired and theneventually get a promotion.In 1969, the subdivision of Labor exposed widespread racial discrimination of theConstruction Department so President Richard M. Nixon decided to encorporate asystem of "goals and timetables" to evaluate federal look companiesaccording to affirmative execution. This idea of "goals and timetables" providedguidelines for companies to follow and comply with affirmative actionregulations.During the presidency of Gerald R. Ford, he extended affirmative action topeople with disabilities (3) and Vietnam veterns (4) but there were no goals ortimetables for these two groups. This type of affirmative action requiredre cruitment efforts, accessability, accommodation and reviews of physical andmental job qualifications.President Jimmy Carter unite all federal agencies that were required bylaw to follow the affirmative action play into the Department of Labor. BeforeCarter did this, each agency handled affirmative action in its own individualway, some were not as consistant as other agencies were. He created the Officeof Federal Contract Compliance Program (OFCCP) in 1978 to ensure compliance withthe affirmative action policies.Affirmative action began to go downhill when Ronald Reagan and later George Bushcame into office. Affirmative action lost some gains it had do and was mor orless ignored by the Republicans in the White House and in Congress. Affirmativeaction was silently being "killed" by our federal administrators. exactly among thisdestruction there was one positive aspect, the passage of Americans withDisabilities Act of 1990 (5).Finally to the Presidency of Bill Clinton. The R epublicans are attempting toscare people into changing their party lines by misusing affirmative action.They are saying that affirmative action is nothing more than a quota (6) orreverse discrimination (7).