welsch@houxu.UUCP (Larry Welsch) (12/03/83)
Today's New York Times has a front page headline "U.S. Brief Opposes Affirmative Plan for Hiring Blacks." Since the case has broad implications for all affirmative action programs I will give some highlights and some opinions. First, some highlights that everyone should agree with. 1. The case is brought against the affirmative action program used by the Detroit Police Department for promoting police officers. 2. The Detroit Police Department promotes policemen by alternately selecting officers from the top of two segregated lists. 3. The lists are segregated by race. 4. The lists are ordered by a combination of factors, including scores on written examinations. 5. The system was to cease when there were an equal number of police lieutenants were black as were white, to occur sometime in 1990. 6. The grounds on which the case is being brought is the constitution's fourteenth amendment's guarentee of "equal protection of the laws." 7. This is the first time that the department of justice has argued against an affirmative action program. 8. This is the first time that an AA program has been argued unconstitutional by reason of the 14th amendment. Now for some opinions. The Detroit police department's AA program goes far beyond insuring equal opportunity. So much so that I believe that it is counter productive. I believe that the program as implemented should be found unconstitutional, but not AA. A better program, would have been for the police department to provide more opportunities for all police officers to earn promotion. Such opportunities could take the form of in hours courses for improving on the written examination; specialized instruction, and so on. The courses could have been geared specifically towards those areas that black members of the force were weakest in, but any officer could benefit from. This would have resulted in a general raising of the quality of police officers. Instead Detroit took the cheap way out. Larry Welsch houxj!welsch