Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper explores the range of responses to affirmative action with a particular focus on how this policy had the effect of pushing whiteness, to various degrees, to the forefront as a social identity. Regardless of the respondents' position, affirmative action forced a majority of my white respondents to think about their own racial identity in relational terms as they considered whether whiteness was or was not a social or economic liability. Respondents’ position on affirmative action may have differed but these narratives were linked explicitly by a struggle to understand, define or defend, being white, and the extent to which white privilege still exists. The political and social implications of perceiving whiteness as a visible and salient category of identification is explored.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Equal-opportunity and affirmative-action law have elicited quite different popular responses since the mid-1960s, when both were forged. Employers argue that diversity is a rational business strategy which they pursue regardless of the law. Researchers criticize the ambiguous language of the law and its weak enforcement. Is Affirmative obsolete? We use a fixed effects analysis of a longitudinal data set that combines government workforce data with life history data on organizations’ practices to examine the efficacy of anti-discrimination measures in establishments subject to equal-opportunity law, and in those subject to both equal-opportunity and affirmative action law. We find that despite the wide diffusion of proactive anti-discrimination measures, when employers are subject to affirmative action (AA) law they make sure these measures actually work. In particular, four anti-discrimination measures were significantly more effective in increasing the representation of African-American women and men in the managerial workforce when used by employers subject to AA law. The measures are (1) affirmative action plans that include specific diversity goals, (2) performance evaluations that rate manager’s equal-opportunity or affirmative action performance, (3) diversity committees given the charge of eliminating discrimination, and (4) mentoring programs designed to help women and minorities move upward in the organization. Unlike the case for African-Americans, affirmative action law did not mediate the effects of employers’ anti-discrimination measures on white women. Our findings contribute to knowledge about the mechanisms that reduce labor market inequality and to theory of organizational change.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: I investigate the relationship between job race-sex composition and the hourly wages of registered nurses (RNs). In addition, I consider how this relationship differs in hospitals that do and do not take affirmative action to increase underrepresented groups—men and racial minorities—in RN positions. Analyses using data from roughly 300 RNs in 80 hospitals in two Pacific Northwest states find as the percent of minority and white female RNs increases, RN wages decrease net of individual, human capital, and job and hospital-level attributes. In hospitals that take affirmative action to increase male and minority RN representation, on the other hand, job race-sex composition is not significantly related to RN hourly wages. I discuss how organizational policies, in particular hospital affirmative action efforts, are one organizational mechanism whereby wages are linked to a job’s social composition.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: “Diversity” has become a fashionable and plastic buzzword over the past thirty years. With the recent U.S. Supreme Court cases concerning affirmative action at the University of Michigan, the concept of diversity has received even greater public scrutiny. The existing scholarly literature that examines discourses about diversity usually relies on macro-level, legal, or text analyses, overlooking people’s interpretations of diversity in their everyday practices. The proposed paper helps to fill in this gap. It draws on over a year of ethnographic evidence about how interests groups involved in the lawsuits against UM—including university administrators, pro- and anti-affirmative action activists, legal professionals, and political leaders—politically and legally mobilized around the lawsuits and then responded to the Court’s decisions. The paper builds on cultural analyses of the law and collective action by examining how various interest groups negotiate different socio-legal paradoxes around diversity. Preliminary findings show how nearly every group is in favor of “diversity,” but they all confront challenges when defining this concept and putting it into practice. For example, outsider activists—both in favor of and opposed to affirmative action—talk about diversity by simultaneously endorsing it and questioning its relevance, meaning, or existence. The proposed paper concludes with a discussion of how ideas related to law acquire constituencies, constitute the categories through which people construct the world, and ultimately shape their efforts to address different social problems.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The concept, policies, and application of affirmative action continue to engage multiethnic countries around the world in debate. This paper compares the origins, evolution, and outcomes of affirmative action policies in the U.S. with those in India, looking specifically at rationales for affirmative action. Applying Tummala’s (1999) four key justifications of Compensatory Justice, Distributive Justice, Social Utility, and Responsiveness to both American and Indian affirmative action programs, I assert that an overall difference in justifications has led to divergent outcomes in these countries. Specifically, I find that India’s dependence on equality principles as the foundation for affirmative action has led to increasing social equality through these programs there, while equality has not been achieved and should not be expected in the U.S. where the primary justification for affirmative action rests on diversity.