I am pleased to introduce tonight speaker Professor Emeritus at virginia, the university he chairs the History Department the editor of a five volume collection of letters as well as the author of dissent of the Supreme Court and the nations constitutional dialogue the lies in the state for affirmativeaction is part of the national dialogue. Many of us have struggled to explain the policy and how it works. In his new book the affirmativeaction puzzle traces to through the present day with Historical Context how affirmative action takes on racism. On the cover Orlando Patterson rates it is a comprehensive account for this nonwhite version of affirmativeaction and in the challenging historical task that no other issue divides americans more it is meticulously researched and honestly crafted work to draw their own conclusions about the value of this experiment. Please join me to welcome Melvin Urofsky to harvard bookstore. [applause] thank you. As a historian my mentor always told me to start with a story. Here is a story. In an Eastern European villag village, two peasants got into a fight. They couldnt resolve the issue between them and one of them said lets go to the rabbi. Whatever the rabbi says will be the solution. The other one says that is good. I trust the rabbi. And he says myours out h son, you are right. He leaves in the second president comes in and pours out his heart and the rabbi says my son you are right. At which point the rabbi who is been sitting there saying you both told both of them they are right and he said you are right also. And that is affirmativeaction. To know that i was conflicted a part of affirmativeaction that i like and there are parts that i think are not good at all. This would have been an easy book to write if i had just stuck with the Supreme Court cases. It would been one tenth of the size and i would have been done a long time ago. But i had to do with a lot of things. So if you look at the table of contents and the court cases there are jews and blacks divide with women of affirmativeactio affirmativeaction, the reagan presidency. Kennedy and johnson the eeoc completely ignored the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Its a very complicated topic. I cannot promise you will understand it any better i hope when you read the book it will come out a little more rational but there is no happy ending. In fact there is no ending at all. And the sponsor of the students harvard one in the District Court with the appeal of the First Circuit court of appeals. However they decide that the harvard wins or loses there will be an appeal to the Supreme Court and they are hoping now that those justices have been appointed that the court will finally take his side. There has always been some form of affirmativeaction. But that affirmativeaction initially was designed to help it is quite clear that is what the registration said and that is what the bureau and others they help the former slaves to get land and money and food. But then as timed on time changed it shifted from helping africanamerican people to helping white people and it was like that for a long time. Taking a look at the new deal measures, not only discriminated against blacks. The g. I. Bill for example although many white people had no trouble to get that to pay for their colleges blacks had to work extra hard and right after the war a lot of places still were not taking black athletes. They so overwhelmed the traditional black colleges that congress had to pass a special measure to provide more money for those to take care of the rush and in terms of the g. I. Bill for housing , the federal government not only encourage redlining among bait one among the banks that some black veterans could purchase houses under the g. I. Bill very few were. So in 1954 the beginning of the Civil Rights Act come i shouldnt say the beginning with the Civil Rights Movement kicks into a higher gear. In january 1961 he knows he is not happy about this. That he will have to deal with that kennedy first uses the term affirmativeaction and kennedy proposes the bill that Lyndon Johnson will strengthen and expand into the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act. Now, the Civil Rights Act specifically said there could not be quote is. What we have with the kennedy and johnson proposal is what i have termed in the book soft affirmativeaction. What it means is simply once you remove the legal barriers and make discrimination against blacks and other minorities illegal, then the assumption was that the doors would open and people who were discriminated against can now walk in and apply for jobs and get into good schools. No quotas. People would get in on the merits. It didnt take long however before they realize this would not work. Is an address to Howard University johnson said in effect you cannot take a person who was been chained up for years, strike off the chains lead him to the beginning of the race and expect that to be a fair competition. You have to do something more. What that was, johnson never really spelled out. But the idea of a soft affirmativeaction in which people would be judged on their merits with no legal barrier barriers, everybody except big it could favor even critics of affirmativeaction have gone on record to say that was a type of affirmativeaction the country needed but what happened later they became bitter critics. The Civil Rights Act of 64 set up the equal Employment Opportunities commission and if ever there was a story of an Administrative Agency and a bunch of bureaucrats to run wil wild, that is the eeoc. Let me quote 11 staff member said when asked about the anti quota a portion of the 64 Civil Rights Act. The hiring provisions of title vii are a big deal they dont mean anything to us. The amazing thing is they got away with it. And that started to move away from other affirmativeaction of doing a by the numbers so there was a lot of pressure. One of the pressures was that africanamericans at the time were not prepared to go through the doors even though they were open they were still the victims of thirdrate schooling in the south still the victims of job discrimination very often if you want to get a job i was a janitor because in many places that was the only job that they could get at the time. So the facts on the ground is that while soft affirmativeaction did not violate any law and sounded good it was not going to work all by itself. It needed something more. Believe it or not a person that gave it something more was Richard Nixon called the philadelphia plan. Im sorry George Schultz was behind is the secretary of labor there was millions of dollars in the philadelphia area and if you have been down to philadelphia there are several museums, the internal Transportation System what they told the contractors and the unions was if you want to get the money and be a federal contractor, you will have to hire minorities. The contractor said fine. How many . Because employers like to work by the numbers so give us a number. We will do it. The problem was they all had contracts with the labor union who said you cannot do that. The Labor Department insisted from the court case the Federal District judge that the record of the labor unions was so terrible that Something Like this was needed. The Supreme Court refused to take the case. This is where we began to get hard affirmativeaction by the numbers that we take this many or that many. One of the big problems is universities. Most of you will understand what the eeoc that universities are not like manufacturing businesses. In terms of students we have a turn over every four or five years in University Class comes in four years later most leave and are gone. But otherwise it takes 40 years to turn over the eeoc kept pushing for colleges to hire more people but it doesnt happen that way now harvard by the way when this started when nixon was president harvard had one tenured woman professor and a chair specifically designated to be held by a woman. This was 1973 roughly. But all of you should be familiar with this. All people and academia no jobs dont last long and then you move on but then you get to a place if you do well by the time youre 35 maybe you publish a book or two, if youre a good teacher or colleague they will vote you tenure. And then my son says unless you screw the pooch you will be there until you retire. So how can you add people when you already have a full load . And there are no people too bad . Duke university was told they had to hire an africanamerican economist into their department. But the problem that year of all the graduate programs in the United States only three africanamericans earned a doctorate in economics. Would be a long time until there would be enough people to begin to fill the hole. Now some colleges try to use affirmative action as a means for compensation for past discrimination primarily among africanamericans and then later against women or latinos or people with disabilities. There is a widespread belief that the people who benefited most from affirmativeaction were white women. Now white women went to the same schools private or public as their brothers, the same cultural opportunities, they often got better grades than their brothers and wants schools went coed, they had no problem they had the credentials to do this. Black women on the other hand also at the same schools as their brothers and these were the thirdrate schools we all learned about ever since brown. Alexis de tocqueville was a french traveler who came here during the jacksonian era in the 18 twenties and thirties marveling at the vibrant democracy he noted in america all major issues get resolved in court rather than on the street streets. And that has been true ever since we expect the courts to resolve many of our issues. Brown the board, the desegregation of the schools although roe v wade is still controversial it certainly helped move along the womens rights movement. The court spoke a few years ago now samesex marriage is legal in every state in the union. But not every issue gets resolved so easily. And one of the issues that has not been resolved by the court is affirmativeaction. Now the first case the court heard so i want to read two quotes. This is the first part of the program. Just bear with me. Number one the key to the problem is the consideration of each applicant in a racially neutral way with that old metaphor of what happens coming to america is about design of the marginalized people and a figure of speech that picks the diversities by the first amendment. Minorities in our midst who serve actively in Public Affairs to be chosen a character alone not on cultural orientation. The purpose of the law school not to produce black lawyers or jewish lawyers or irish lawyer lawyers, it should be to produce good lawyers for america. Quotation number one. Here is number two. It is plainly true in our society blacks and separatist in the nation are immeasurably greater than any directed. But those who believe racial preferences can help to even the score to reinforce a manner that was a source of the injustice and to be the source of more injustice still not that it was blacks or jews or irish to be discriminated against but individual men and women created equal who are discriminated against and the resolve is that it should never happen again. They show preferences to even the score in a small debate one of the proposition of society is appropriately viewed racist to make it right that the injustice in the past to a black man should be compensated for by discriminating against the white. Who said that . Guess is . Who said the first one . William o douglas. One of the most liberal justices of the 20th century. One of the things i try to show in the book is that opposition to affirmative action is not cut and dry were all the conservatives are against it those are forward it doesnt work that way. There are a lot of liberals who have a great deal of trouble. The reason that they do that unlike europe now it is true there have been amendments i gave the two black sand 18 yearolds but the 14th amendment does not say it will not deny any group of equal protection of the lots is no state shall deny any person equal protection of the law our rights have always been individual. We have never signed on to documents providing group rights. We have avoided for the most part, the Group Massacres like after yugoslavia fell apart. But this is one of the things that has been part of the problem where liberals who otherwise might be expected to export affirmativeaction have real problems with it. So the first case that came along where the court actually went someplace was the university of california davis founded a medical school and took it 100 people every year reserving 16 of those spots. Now in california minorities are not just africanamericans but also hispanics. Allen and law school served in the military and was in the States Program and wanted to be a doctor and had a lot of trouble they told him he was too old. He was 31. But then he discovered the school he wanted to get into because it was near his home he had higher scores on boards and others than any of the other 16 people in the Minority Program that were taken so he sues and eventually goes to the Supreme Court and we get one of the strangest decisions and the entire court history. For members of the court believe that race could be taken into consideration in a benign manner so it does not violate the 14th amendment or the Civil Rights Act. For members of the court believe taking race into account does violate the 14th amendment and the Civil Rights Act and in the middle was a gentleman from virginia who came up with an opinion that said race could be taken into account provided it was part of the holistic application and pointed to harvard the way this would be done and got four more votes. But that said there could not be quotas and that he got the other four votes for that opinion so we have a four one opinion that his is essentially that will determine affirmativeaction for the rest of the time its enforce. So even more important affirmativeaction case came up shortly after that brian weber he worked for the Aluminum Company alcoa that was going to try to provide training for those on the lower rungs to have the skills to move up. He wanted to be in that group. But the union has signed the contract with alcoa. Essentially to say a certain number of spots in the Training Group would be reserved for minorities. Brian weber goes to court and in the opinion by justice brenna brennan, the contract is upheld. Now the reason this was important, the 14th amendment does not apply to private business just government, state or federal. But this said private businesses could have affirmativeactio affirmativeaction, and they could take race into account and as long as they didnt discriminate entirely which did violated federal law, they could have affirmativeaction plans and they do today. Nearly every big company has affirmativeaction plans and they have it for a very good reason. In the Washington Area you cannot go into a bank without finding at least one spanishspeaking teller or person behind the desk. And as one person said working for a west coast bank part of our business consist of hispanics they will not come to us unless we have people who look like them and can speak their language. That just makes good sense for higher one rest of higher those who speak spanish. Now then the court went on to strike down several plans such as michigan and virginia. And what they did, they decided any statesponsored plan that took race into account even in the benevolent manner had to be treated the way they would treat anyway space with scrutiny. That is a hard level to meet. And then the universities changed the rationale. It was a source of remediation to be a need for diversity in the classroom. If you ask me is diversity in the classroom important . They will say it is. I learned that years ago. One of my first teaching job so that Ohio State University in columbus the summer before i started that job a friend and i were at edmonton where he taught american history. I worked very hard because i wanted to take those and use them when i got to ohio state. One day i was talking about the great depression. I have a lot of stories that i thought i had done a hell of a good job. And as usual i stopped five or ten minutes before and said are there any questions . Universities at that time allowed senior citizens. There was an older gentleman there who hadnt said anything but now raised his hand to say sonny, that was pretty good and then for the next 15 minutes he had the place spellbound telling them personal stories of the depression. After that i had no doubt diversity in the classroom was a good idea. But what type of diversity do you want . This current thing about harvard i wrote a little piece of course they have been discriminating for years. Try to remember the word discriminate has two meanings. One is to be prejudice or only having a discriminating taste which it is a positive. I went to columbia. When i was there before women were allowed my entry class was 650 students as i learned as a graduate student working in the office, when applications came in they were put into one of three piles. One is the five borough of manhattan, second a radius of 50 miles of new york city to take in the suburbs in connecticut, westchester and new jerse