affirmative action

Policy of positive discrimination to increase opportunities for certain social groups in employment, business, government, and other areas. The policy is designed to counter the effects of long-term discrimination against groups such as women, disabled people, and minority ethnic groups. In Europe, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy actively promote affirmative action through legal and financial incentives.

In the USA, the Equal Opportunities Act 1972 set up a Commission to enforce affirmative action as a policy in organizations receiving public funds; many private institutions and employers adopted voluntary affirmative-action programmes at that time. In the 1980s the policy was sometimes not rigorously enforced and there were allegations of ‘reverse discrimination’ (individuals receiving preferential treatment solely because they belonged to a particular group), nevertheless a review completed in 1995 reported that most programmes were justifiable.

The policy has been controversial, and has prompted lawsuits by white males who have been denied jobs or education as a result. Positive discrimination in favour of ethnic-minority construction companies by local government was outlawed in January 1989. In 1996 the US Supreme Court dealt a blow to affirmative action by upholding a Texas lower court ruling that struck down a state university program weighted in favor of minorities. A year later a US federal appeals court ruled that California could enforce the nation's first law repealing affirmative action. In November 1998 voters in Washington State followed the lead of Californians two years earlier by approving a proposition prohibiting racial and gender-based affirmative action in areas such as employment, education, and public procurement. The USA witnessed another backlash against affirmative action in March 2000 when a federal court ruled that Denver, Colorado, one of the nation's fastest growing urban centres, had illegally discriminated against white males in awarding public construction contracts.

In Australia in the 1980s, the Commonwealth and most state governments adopted the ‘affirmative action’ policy. The Commonwealth Affirmative Action (Equal Employment Opportunity for Women) Act 1986 set up the Affirmative Action Agency with the aim of guiding the adoption of equal opportunity in all higher education institutions and private sector organizations with 100 or more employees.

In India, the government's decision of 1990 to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission on job reservations for disadvantaged ‘backward castes’ provoked a bloody caste war in the cities of northern India.