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Other Issues
Civil Rights & Equal Opportunity

Civil rights and discrimination are among the most controversial subjects that state and local leaders must discuss. But they are also crucial issues that involve the core values of our political system: equality before the law, personal freedom, and the dignity of the individual. Affirmative action, originally proposed as a device for extending educational and employment opportunities to minorities and women previously excluded from fair and open competition, has in all too many cases become discrimination itself. The resulting disaffection and anger threatens to pull our society apart at the seams.

Discrimination And Its Enemies

Discrimination against women, racial minorities, and other groups is not only an historical legacy in North Carolina — it continues to be a reality in many workplaces and communities. When businesses discriminate on the basis of race or other factors, they are putting their own prejudices before the goal of maximizing profits and performance and will pay the price in the marketplace. In governmental services such as education and health care, the continued existence of discrimination is unjust, costly, and embarrassing, and should never be tolerated in a state and nation devoted to principles of individual liberty and dignity.

However, some of the tools currently used to combat discrimination have themselves become egregious violations of the principle of equal opportunity. In state government, a 1987 executive order established a goal of buying 4 percent of state goods and services from minorities, women, and the disabled. The General Assembly has created a separate 10-percent goal for state highway and other construction projects. Formal and informal employment targets and quotas exist throughout state government. Furthermore, many local governments in North Carolina have contracting and employment quotas of their own.

Race-based discrimination is especially prevalent in the University of North Carolina system. UNC awards so-called “minority presence grants” to black students who attend majority-white institutions as well as whites who attend majority-black institutions. At least some UNC campuses also use race as a factor in the admissions process. A 1997 analysis by The Charlotte Observer found that if students were admitted to UNC-Chapel Hill on the basis of SAT scores and high school class rank alone, black enrollment at the school might have dropped by as much as 40 percent.

Most of these students would likely end up at other UNC campuses, such as Greensboro or Charlotte, or other public or private colleges. Nor would the black students who are academically prepared to succeed at Chapel Hill be affected. Indeed, the Observer grouped applicants into five quintiles, based on academic qualifications, and found that virtually all applicants in the top 40 percent, regardless of race, are admitted under the current system. But within the bottom 20 percent of applicants, only 7 percent of whites but nearly half of blacks are admitted. These black students are often woefully unprepared for the rigor of coursework at Chapel Hill, and they drop out at much higher rates than do white students. Their plight is caused not by a lack of affirmative action at the college level, but instead the poor preparation they receive in public schools (see graph).

The stated goal of affirmative action is unassailable, but the way affirmative action is practiced today is only increasing racial animosity. In a poll for The News & Observer of Raleigh, 41 percent of whites and 40 percent of blacks say that race relations are getting worse rather than better. This is troubling news. Racial preferences also fail to help the most disadvantaged minorities, for whom hiring and higher education preferences are irrelevant. These citizens are poorly served by public schools that do not effectively prepare them for citizenship and the world of work, by state and local law enforcement efforts that fail to protect them from criminal predators, from programs that foster dependency rather than self-sufficiency, and by government-imposed barriers to economic growth and entrepreneurship that leave them with few economic options. Addressing these needs would expand equal opportunity far more effectively than having the government discriminate in favor of historically aggrieved groups.

Not all forms of affirmative action run afoul of the principles of equal opportunity, however. The original meaning of the term included such commendable policies as outreach programs to make sure applicants of all racial and ethnic backgrounds are aware of opportunities for employment, contracts, and education. By “casting the net widely,” states and localities can ensure that their applicant pool represents the best their communities have to offer. A merit-based selection process from the pool may or may not yield results that satisfy some self-styled civil rights activists, but it will best serve the interests of all citizens.

Recommendations

1. North Carolina state and local governments should eliminate all preferences, quotas, goals, and targets for suppliers, employment, and school admissions. Instead, government should vigorously enforce existing laws promoting equal opportunity and respect for the rights of all North Carolinians.
2. To expand opportunities for racial and other minorities in North Carolina to provide for themselves and their families, state and local leaders should offer private-school scholarships to students in low-performing school districts, expand efforts to combat crime, and promote true economic development across the state

To view higher quality graphs, download Agenda 2004 [560KB Acrobat].