Quote:Who are the Intended Beneficiaries of Affirmative Action?

Contrary to popular belief, African Americans are not the sole, or even the primary, beneficiaries of affirmative action. Rather, a wide range of groups have benefited from these policies which promote equality by directing resources, outreach and other opportunities to targeted under represented communities.

These groups include women, Blacks/African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Asians/Pacific Islanders, and American Indians/Alaskan Natives. Other underrepresented groups include veterans, disabled veterans, veterans who served on active duty during a war or campaign, veterans who participated in a military operation for which an armed services medal was awarded, pursuant to Executive Order 12985; and recently, separated veterans.

According to the United States Labor Department, the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action are white women. The Department of Labor estimated that 6 million women workers are in higher occupational classifications today than they would have been without affirmative action policies.

Quote:Most of the influx has come at public institutions, which receive funding from federal and state governments. Such colleges are pressured to increase their white enrollment — even as affirmative-action requirements at some other universities are waning.

"It is an odd and dubious legality that institutions that have not excluded anyone" are now forced to recruit white students, said Lezli Baskerville of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Education.

Tennessee State University, for instance, was at one point under court order to increase its non-black enrollment to 50 percent. The court eventually dropped that requirement, and the school has agreed to earmark $924,000 a year for scholarships to white students.

Three universities in Mississippi — Jackson State, Mississippi Valley State and Alcorn State — must increase white enrollments to at least 10 percent and maintain that level for three years before receiving a portion of $524 million in state funds for school improvements provided in a federal court settlement, officials said. An effort to overturn that settlement reached in Ayers v. Fordice, a landmark desegregation case for colleges, was rejected Oct.18 by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Quote:The results indicate large racial differences in callback rates to a phone line with a voice mailbox attached and a message recorded by someone of the appropriate race and gender. Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback. This would suggest either employer prejudice or employer perception that race signals lower productivity.

The 50 percent gap in callback rates is statistically very significant, Bertrand and Mullainathan note in Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination (NBER Working Paper No. 9873).

sanantone Wrote:If this student were a white woman, then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Quote:Who are the Intended Beneficiaries of Affirmative Action? [NC State University Affirmative Action in Employment Training]

sanantone Wrote:People have this misconception that it's easy to get into a government job if you're a female minority. There are really only two things that great increase your chances of getting a federal government job: veterans' preference points and Indian preference for jobs in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I'm a black woman with a master's degree who has applied to hundreds of federal government jobs and only received one interview after passing two exams for one position. I scored high on other civil service exams, but was not able to compete with applicants who received veterans' preference points. I have no problem with veterans' preference; I'm just describing how the system really works.

KittenMittens Wrote:Eh, I'd say it's because it just doesn't happen that much if practically ever. There was that white girl, Elizabeth Holmes, who created a biotech company called Theranos and is now a billionaire. Typical child prodigy, really smart, went to Stanford, etc but I don't think she got into several ivy leagues.



That's simply because women represent about 50% of the total population, and also include underrepresented minorities. Blacks as a whole are about 45 million, so naturally more women are going to get affirmative action-based policies.

Quote:But the point that's being made is that as far as getting a "boost" goes - being native american/black + woman = best chances for opportunity, and then it goes down from there. I think being black + male still gives you a better advantage for ivy league schools than being a white woman, but maybe I'm wrong on that.

In other words, not all minorities are treated equally. More women get affirmative action but generally not to the degree/level that Native Americans or blacks do (for historical reasons of course) i.e. quantity/quality in the effect.



[URL="http://govcentral.monster.com/benefits/articles/387-federal-workforce-diversity-why-agencies-seek-out-minority-workers"]If you're looking for a government job, being black or hispanic definitely helps.

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"African Americans make up 17.4 percent of the federal workforce, as compared to 10.1 percent of the civilian labor force. But the percentage of African Americans drops dramatically with each rise in job grade. They hold 27.6 percent of the lowest positions (GS 1-4), 25.8 percent of GS 5-8, 15.7 percent of GS 9-12, 10.9 percent of GS 13-15 and just 6.9 percent of Senior Pay levels."

Maybe it's just my experience, but whenever I go to the Post Office, DMV, Social Security office, etc. there are more blacks and/or hispanics than what I see in the private sector.

[video=youtube;Yz3bDON9bNo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz3bDON9bNo[/video]

Maybe try looking into state jobs. NY and CA are good places to look.

Quote:Even degrees in science, technology, engineering and math — so-called STEM fields where the demand is high — have not immunized recent black graduates against job search difficulty. From 2010 to 2012, the average unemployment rate among young black engineers was 10 percent, the center reported, while the underemployment rate was 32 percent.

The evidence suggests that black graduates, with fewer resources to fall back on, are even more aggressive than whites in pursuing a job. But that hasn’t been enough to overcome obstacles.