Government Affirmative Action Research Articles

Employment and Livelihoods among Tribal in India

The present article attempts to explore one of the most pertinent issues of livelihood among tribals in India. In this context, the following two key issues have been examined: (a) whether tribal people are still engaged primarily in agriculture or forestry related activities for their livelihood or they have moved to non-farm and industrial activities over the years and (b) whether the government affirmative action like reservation policy has helped the tribal people in joining more government/public/formal sector jobs. This article is based on analysis of last two decades secondary data from National Sample Surveys (NSS) and Census of India. On the basis of the analysis of the data it has been observed that the participation of tribals in public sector or formal sector jobs has increased over the years, which may be due to various affirmative actions by the governments’ reservation policy. However, the human capital base of tribals is still much below the other social groups. Another important fact has been revealed through probit regression analysis that the government reservation policy is exclusionary in effect. Maximum benefits have been derived by those who are highly educated and those who belong to high income group. These issues need urgent policy interventions for creating better livelihood conditions for the tribal population particularly for those who are relatively less benefitted which may need further investigation.

PERAN GENERASI BINA BANGSA (GENBI) DALAM MEMBERDAYAKAN MASYARAKAT PERBATASAN JAGOI BABANG KAB BENGKAYANG

This article discusses the role of GENBI in increasing the community participation in developing the Bidai craft in Jagoi Babang Bengka using incubator business program in cooperation with Bank Indonesia. This paper uses qualitative methods by using in depth interview towards Bidai craftsmen in Jagoi Babang and the community leaders who are competent about the issue of border development. Using Arstein Ladder method, it is identified that there is a significant increase of community participation in the business incubator program. It is on the fifth and the sixth phase, namely partnership and placation. The Synergy cooperation among government, the private sector and the community is needed in order to increase public participation. Government affirmative action becomes important to be pursued to control the bidai craft productivity and create a socio economic network among the craftsmen.

Originalism and the Colorblind Constitution

The legal literature on the subject of originalism and affirmative action asserts two propositions: that originalism strongly supports the constitutionality of affirmative action and that the two originalist justices – Justices Scalia and Thomas – appear to be hypocrites for holding that the Constitution forbids government affirmative action. These claims are made by various leading scholars, including Cass Sunstein and Jed Rubenfeld. This Article challenges these claims. First, I argue that the Constitution’s original meaning does not plainly establish that state affirmative action is constitutional. Instead, there is, at the least, a reasonable argument to be made that such affirmative action is unconstitutional. In fact, based on the available evidence, I believe that the case for concluding that the 14th Amendment’s original meaning prohibits affirmative action as to laws within its scope is stronger than the case for concluding that it allows affirmative action. Second, because there is at least a reasonable argument for their position, I argue that the originalist justices are not being inconsistent or hypocritical by supporting a colorblind Constitution. I do argue, however, that the originalist justices should have explained how an originalist methodology could yield the colorblind constitution. The claim that the original meaning supports affirmative action is based on a set of federal statutes passed at the time of the 14th Amendment that are thought to provide race based benefits to blacks. I argue, however, that these statutes do not provide strong evidence that the 14th Amendment allows such race based benefits. These were federal statutes that were not governed by the 14th Amendment and therefore were not directly informative of its meaning. Moreover, most of these statutes, and perhaps virtually all of them, are not necessarily best interpreted as providing race based benefits. In addition to arguing that the evidence for the constitutionality of affirmative action under the 14th Amendment’s original meaning is weak, the Article also contends that there is relatively substantial originalist evidence in favor of the colorblind Constitution. The Article explores two leading and representative theories of the original meaning of the equality component of the 14th Amendment – John Harrison’s interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause and Michelle Saunders’s interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause – to show that they are reasonably interpreted to support the colorblind Constitution.

Malaysia as model

This article uses a case study of public human resource management (HRM) in Malaysia to explore policy ‘transferability’, proposed as a refinement of Dolowitz and Marsh's policy transfer framework. HRM in the Malaysian civil service is found to be relatively performance-orientated, though that is qualified by the Government's affirmative action policies. Malaysia's approach is attributed to factors that have their roots in Malaysia's history: the pervasive respect for authority, the ethnic mix, its Anglo-Saxon orientation, the successful economy, the National Development Policy of 1990 and the personal role of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed. These factors suggest that public management is both shaped and constrained by its historical roots. The case suggests that successful policy transfer requires an understanding of those roots, especially when there is a significant distance in cultural, political, economic or linguistic terms between the countries transferred from and to.

Enforcement of Civil Rights Law in Private Workplaces: The Effects of Compliance Reviews and Lawsuits Over Time

Has federal antidiscrimination law been effective in moving women and minorities into management? Early studies show that government affirmative action reviews improved the numbers, and rank, of blacks, but evidence of what has happened since 1980 is sparse. There is little evidence that civil rights lawsuits improved the employment status of women or African Americans. We examine establishment-level effects of compliance reviews and lawsuits on the percentage of women and blacks in management. We find that compliance reviews, which alter organizational routines, had stronger and more lasting effects than lawsuits, which create disincentives to discriminate. We also find that deregulation was more consequential for compliance reviews than for lawsuits: Compliance reviews initiated in the 1980s were less effective than Alexandra Kalev received her Ph.D. from Princeton in 2005 and is a postdoctorate fellow at the RWJ Program in Health Policy Research at UC Berkeley. Her dissertation examines how the restructuring of work in the United States affects women’s and minorities’ careers. She currently studies gender and racial disparities in health and safety at work. In a collaborative project with Frank Dobbin she studies how corporate responses to antidiscrimination laws shape workforce diversity. Frank Dobbin received his Ph.D. from Stanford, and taught at Princeton for fifteen years before moving to Harvard in 2003. An organizational and economic sociologist, he has studied corporate response to equal opportunity and affirmative action law in papers charting the creation of civil rights grievance procedures, equal opportunity departments, diversity programs, maternity leave, and sexual harassment programs. With Alexandra Kalev, he is now studying the effects of these and other corporate human relations practices on workforce diversity.

Re-mapping Equal Protection Jurisprudence: A Legal Geography of Richmond v. Croson

Re-mapping Equal Protection Jurisprudence: A Legal Geography of Richmond v. Croson

Dalit christians and identity politics in India

Since the 1970s increasing numbers of those who used to be known as “untouchables” or “harijans” have rejected these terms in favor of the name “dalit.” Besides adopting a new name dalits are also asserting an alternative form of identity. The majority of the 20 million-strong Indian Christian community shares this social background. Since the middle of the 1980s many Christians have begun to assert their dalit identity. One consequence of this has been an increasing level of activism among the Indian Christian churches. The churches have been mounting an energetic campaign to have the Dalit Christians included on the Scheduled Caste list. This list determines access to the central government affirmative action schemes. This has occurred at a time when identity has become an important basis for political mobilization in India and conventional models of progressive politics based on class alliances have been called into question. However, using the specific case of the Dalit Christians, this article argues that certain forms of identity politics can assist the development of progressive politics in India.

When Does Private Discrimination Justify Public Affirmative Action?

Commentators and courts alike have ignored the Supreme Court's forthright assertion in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989), that government can use its spending power to eradicate the effects of private discrimination. Croson makes it clear that private discrimination can be a constitutionally sufficient justification for government affirmative action, but provided little explanation. Filling out the contours of a private discrimination justification will largely decide the fate of affirmative action in government procurement. This is true because in some markets there is little evidence of current public discrimination, whereas private discrimination remains pervasive. Building on key language from Croson, this Article offers three private discrimination rationales: (1) to ensure that government spending does not directly or indirectly facilitate private discrimination (causal); (2) to correct for the depressive effect of private discrimination on the capacity of minority-owned firms (but-for); and, most radically, (3) to correct for discrimination in parallel private markets (single-market). An example helps to illustrate the less familiar single-market justification: If private purchasers discriminate against minority pencil sellers, the government should be able to buy more pencils from minorities to make up for this shortfall. Finally, we suggest possible applications of the private discrimination justifications to education and employment.

When Does Private Discrimination Justify Public Affirmative Action?

Commentators and courts alike have ignored the Supreme Court's forthright assertion in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989), that government can use its spending power to eradicate the effects of private discrimination. Croson makes it clear that private discrimination can be a constitutionally sufficient justification for government affirmative action, but provided little explanation. Filling out the contours of a private discrimination justification will largely decide the fate of affirmative action in government procurement. This is true because in some markets there is little evidence of current public discrimination, whereas private discrimination remains pervasive. Building on key language from Croson, this Article offers three private discrimination rationales: (1) to ensure that government spending does not directly or indirectly facilitate private discrimination (causal); (2) to correct for the depressive effect of private discrimination on the capacity of minority-owned firms (but-for); and, most radically, (3) to correct for discrimination in parallel private markets (single-market). An example helps to illustrate the less familiar single-market justification: If private purchasers discriminate against minority pencil sellers, the government should be able to buy more pencils from minorities to make up for this shortfall. Finally, we suggest possible applications of the private discrimination justifications to education and employment.

Is It Sunset Time for Affirmative Action and Set-Aside Programs?

On Nov. 5, 1996, the voters of the state of California passed Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative, an initiative to amend the state constitution to eliminate state and local government affirmative action programs in public employment, public education, and public contracting. The passage of the initiative does not affect federal programs or requirements, nor does it affect the private sector. The margin of passage was approximately 54% to 46%. The initiative will be contested in the courts and is subject to various future court rulings.

The Australian Government's Affirmative Action Legislation: Achieving Social Change Through Human Resource Management*

Data from the Affirmative Action Agency Public Reports and the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey were used to review progress in the implementation of the Australian Government's Affirmative Action legislation and to examine the relationship between following mandatory procedures and achieving outcomes that impact positively on women's workforce experiences. The data suggest that while a relationship exists at the bivariate level, it becomes considerably weaker when organizational and workforce characteristics are controlled. The variables that emerged from the analyses as strong predictors of both procedural compliance and the adoption of accommodating practices for women centered around human resource management. Where companies were committed to human resource management, both procedural compliance and accommodating practices tended to be high. These data demonstrate the importance of linking legislation for social change with workplace functions, particularly when resistance to the legislation is high and capacity to enforce is low.

National Bank of Greenwood

The affirmative action plan, employment records, and personnel practices of the National Bank of Greenwood, employing 138 persons in the Indiana town of 20,000, were subjected to a grueling inspection by Labor Department staff for more than two years starting in 1979. The staff changed frequently, repeatedly demanded more and different information, and then rejected what it had demanded. “We feel,” the bank president said, “that... [the Labor Department] has taken over... [our] personnel function.” Such ordeals have often occurred, especially when contractors were developing personnel records to meet the complex and often unrealistic government affirmative action requirements. Setting aside the manifest incompetence and unreasonableness of Labor staff, the experience reflected the conflicting goals of bank and Labor officials. The bank sought to treat all applicants and employees fairly; Labor, to increase the number of women and minority employees, especially in better-paid jobs.

Understanding Government Affirmative Action and Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC

Understanding Government Affirmative Action and Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC

Interorganizational Dependence and Responsiveness to Affirmative Action: The Case of Women and Defense Contractors

This study is an examination of the effect of interorganizational dependencies on compliance with government affirmative action demands. Defense contractors were the subjects in the study. The spee...

Interorganizational Dependence and Responsiveness to Affirmative Action: The Case of Women and Defense Contractors.

This study is an examination of the effect of interorganizational dependencies on compliance with government affirmative action demands. Defense contractors were the subjects in the study. The spee...