Discrimination gains new life

Hallelujah! Shout it from the rooftops. Employers may discriminate again. A 5-4 Supreme Court decision two weeks ago takes this country back 51 years to the time just before passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Discrimination won’t be as blatant as it used to be but it will occur. Employers who were hesitant to discriminate before won’t feel any pressure now not to do so.

Most conservatives, black or white, praise the court’s decision. The court said 20 white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were denied promotion because of racial discrimination. New Haven invalidated a promotional examination after no black applicants scored high enough to qualify.

Most liberals (including me) decry the decision as a return to legalized job discrimination.

I wonder why quota systems are OK as long as they favor whites? Historically, as long as whites were hired in ratios of 99.9 to .1 percent, quotas aren’t an issue. Quotas become an issue when minorities justify their use to promote equal opportunities.

It took almost a century, from 1865 to the mid 1960s, for African and Native Americans to get a chance at better paying jobs. But just 49 years later, the Supreme Court agrees that whites (men mostly) are being discriminated against.

The court believes that employers that practiced discrimination and those who want to will resist doing so. Those of us who disagree with the court’s decision don’t believe that suddenly and magically, employers won’t return to their old ways.

If the hiring opportunity playing field were level, you wouldn’t hear a peep out of me. But others, including those who hire, and I know discrimination will return.

The part of the court’s decision that really riles me is the line that it’s not discrimination as long as the employer’s selection wasn’t intentional. So how does one prove discrimination? One can’t and that’s the rub.

Allan Bakke won the first reverse discrimination case back in 1978, 14 years after Equal Employment Opportunity legislation became law. Since then, it seems that with every session of the Supreme Court, equal opportunity takes a step backwards.

The only solution is to require every human resources department, whether public or private, to have at least one minority (and don’t count white females as minorities) working in their offices. And it’s not necessary that the minority be an African American.

My reason for suggesting it is simple. It should be harder for potential discriminators to do so with a minority working in their offices.

Of course with the loophole provided by the court most of us know the old quota system will return.

Perhaps there’s a silver lining. Minority parents will have more incentive to demand that their children stay in school and earn better grades.

Remember when the NCAA began requiring minimum test scores for student athletes to participate in sports? Minority students who really wanted to play at the college level improved their grades.

If minority students’ grades improved for sports, they will improve for jobs as well.

Nelson Graves, of Augusta County, is a columnist for The News Virginian. E-mail him at .