What was affirmative action?

Affirmative action refers to a set of federal, state, and private policies designed to remedy past discrimination by giving members of historically excluded groups preferential consideration in employment, education, and government contracting. The phrase first appeared in Executive Order 10925, signed by President John F. Kennedy on March 6, 1961, which required federal contractors to take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.

President Lyndon B. Johnson expanded the policy with Executive Order 11246 on September 24, 1965, which required federal contractors with more than 50 employees and more than 50,000 dollars in contracts to develop written affirmative action plans. Johnson explained the rationale in his Howard University commencement address on June 4, 1965, arguing that you do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, you are free to compete with all the others. President Richard Nixon's Philadelphia Plan of 1969 set numerical goals for hiring minorities in federal construction contracts.

Many universities adopted admissions policies that considered race as one factor among many in the 1970s and 1980s. Affirmative action became one of the most contested issues in American law and politics. The Supreme Court has ruled on the practice repeatedly. Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978 struck down rigid racial quotas at the University of California Davis Medical School but allowed race to be considered as one factor among many. Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003 upheld the use of race in University of Michigan Law School admissions. Fisher v. University of Texas decisions in 2013 and 2016 narrowly upheld limited use of race.

The Supreme Court reversed direction in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, decided together on June 29, 2023, ruling that race-conscious admissions at most colleges and universities violated the Equal Protection Clause. Workplace and contracting affirmative action programs continue under various federal regulations. Critics call affirmative action reverse discrimination, while supporters argue it remains necessary to address persistent inequality in American institutions.