Too radical for the court
On June 13 the United States Supreme Court reached landmark decisions which weaken affirmative action programs. The Reagan and Bush appointee-dominated court sided with a white contractor who claimed he had been a victim of reverse discrimination when he lost a road-building contract to a minority-owned rival company.
In a second ruling upheld by a 5-4 vote, the justices held that a lower federal court had exceeded its authority when it ordered the Kansas City education department to step up desegregation plans after black students' test scores remained significantly lower than those of white students.
The decisions apparently did not go so far as to declare affirmative action programs in general unconstitutional. However, they do adapt to conservative sentiment that sees affirmative action as discriminating against white, educated, heterosexual men.
The decision has been hailed as a victory for "angry white males" who are feeling left behind as blacks, women and other so-called "minorities" supposedly are awarded contracts, allocated positions in educational institutions and given career advancement opportunities based on affirmative action quota systems rather than individual "merit".
Leaving aside the debate about quotas per se, these US court rulings set a dangerous precedent. They re-institutionalise the notion — struggled against by the civil rights movement for decades — that not only should all citizens be treated equally, but that they share an equal starting point. Each person is individually responsible for their own journey through life, society and employment and deserves to be judged according to their own merits in every aspect of this journey.
In other words, institutionalised racism no longer exists. Similarly, sexism is a thing of the past. Institutionalised discrimination of any kind is no longer relevant — the only ethos that remains viable, on this view, is one which regards society as made up of healthy competition between individuals on the basis of their own abilities.
The political climate in the US, as in other advanced industrialised countries, is ripe for this kind of backlash. Industrial capitalism is failing. Ordinary people are paying for the system's inability to deliver by suffering growing unemployment and under-employment. Life is getting tougher; it's harder to find a job, harder to get an education. Under these circumstances, affirmative action programs become the scapegoat for disenfranchised, unhappy working people who are feeling the pressure.
By definition, the scapegoat won't solve the problems; its main purpose is to deflect attention from the real culprit. The US court decisions achieve this aim — they blame the wrong enemy. Blaming affirmative action programs for the difficulties faced by ordinary working people is much easier, and more palatable to defenders of the status quo, than drawing more radical conclusions.
By Kath Gelber