affirmative action, USA

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Policy of positive discrimination pursued in the USA for the advancement of disadvantaged US citizens. First promoted by US president Lyndon Johnson's Executive Order 11246 (1965), it was furthered by a 1970 Department of Labor order to federal contractors to develop ‘an acceptable affirmative action program’, and the Equal Opportunities Act (1972). Aimed in particular at black American and Hispanic American ethnic groups, it also covered gender discrimination. Stemming from the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, it was argued that education and employment should be biased towards non-white ethnic groups to overcome the effects of centuries of prejudice. Affirmative action was enforced in organizations receiving public funds, and many private employers adopted similar programmes. The policy began to falter in the 1980s, when the Civil Rights Commission called it ‘unjustified discrimination’. In the 1990s a series of court cases declared it illegal, as it promoted ‘reverse discrimination’, preferential treatment of one ethnic group over another. Nevertheless, affirmative action had challenged white-American domination in education, employment, and government.

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