SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS
THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 1995
COMMENTARY

VOICE FROM SANTA BARBARA/GEORGE DOMINGO

Statistics, quotas and affirmative action

I propose the following experiment. Suppose that we count how many people named John are on the welfare rolls. I'll bet my next lunch, supper if you want to increase the ante, that the number is proportionally the same as those named John in the entire U.S. population (plus or minus a couple of percentage points).

Suppose, though, that we find that there are 25 percent more Johns in the welfare rolls than in the general population. Social scientists, economists politicians and specially those people named John would immediately look for causes of this deviation.

There is no obvious reason why Johns should be more or less predisposed to poverty than those named Peter or Paul. Therefore, after we put in question the validity of the study ,we would be very curious to find a correlation. We intuitively refuse to accept that the name John has anything to do with income or that the difference is purely a random event.

We would have a different reaction if we chose names like Li or Emilio for our study. It is not the names, we would say, but the fact that these names are more common in certain groups of people who as a group, tend to be more or less economically savvy. Nobody has said anything, yet, about culpability, prejudice or if there is institutional discrimination. No, at this point we are just surprised that the deviation exists. Now, let us apply these thoughts to real situations.

Women account for 52 percent of the population 80 percent of them work, but less than 10 percent occupy positions in the executive suites. Why are we not extremely surprised at these results? (Try re placing the word women with the name John and see if the above paragraph makes any sense.)

Unless we assume that women, as a group, are less capable, less hard working, less committed to the job or just do not spire to these high positions, we need to conclude that there is a pattern of discrimination that we ought to understand and correct.

The answer is not to pass a law that 52 percent of the executive positions from now on must be filled with women(quotas),but to alert all of us that there is a statistically obvious discriminatory pattern, organizations must look at their own policies and practices; and companies ought to implement pro grams that encourage, train and promote women to executive positions.

The reason for this pattern' may not be malicious. The It may be the way we educate our daughters, or their additional responsibilities as wives and mothers, including maternity leaves and child care, or their own aspirations. The answer then is not to promote to executive positions women that are unqualified, but establish the infrastructure (education, child care, social encounters, whatever it may be) so that women can overcome these external barriers.

I am not so naive to think that there is no real discrimination.

Prejudice-i.e., prejudging something or some one-is an instinctive and necessary reaction we have developed for our own self-preservation. We need to generalize to recognize threats and opportunities. "This group," we say," is a threat to me, so l will avoid it." We need to be consciously aware of this innate reaction so we compensate for it when it results in negative behavior.

We are prejudiced. If I have a choice, I will look for and live with people who look like me, think as I do, and enjoy the same music. This is our natural inclination that, when applied to social interactions, can be devastating to groups that are under-represented.

About two years ago, an ABC 20/20 program followed two single, young, professional friends, a black and a white, as they moved to St Louis. Both had the same education, the same career, the same recommendations and the same amount of money and type of clothing.

Guess what? The white had no difficulty finding a place to rent and securing interviews for jobs. He also bought a car on credit. His black friend had difficulties. He ended up paying more for a car and for rent and getting considerably fewer job referrals. Let's not deceive ourselves. Prejudice is with us it is part of human nature and it will be with us for many, many years, if not forever.

The best way to get a job, everybody will tell you, is to know somebody inside the company. No, there is nothing illegal or unethical about hiring a friend or a well-known colleague or a person whom you met in the golf course or in the men's room. But we cannot deny that those who have access lo the same men's rooms or golf courses as the CEOs, have a significant advantage over the rest of us.

Statistical numbers are not quotas, but a legitimate measure of fairness. Any time that a group (those people name John, for example) has a statistically significant deprivation of benefits, jobs, education or housing, there is a sign that a discriminatory condition exists, and we should as a society do our best to remove that condition even if nobody is at fault.

I do not care what happened in the past, I do not care about redress, I do not judge how malicious people were or are. I just look at the numbers and they tell me that there is discrimination right now and therefore we need to actively, affirmatively, compensate for it.

The word quota is a red herring mostly used by those who have to rationalize why they did not get something they wanted. Life is not always fair. Affirmative action ought to exist until statistical deviations between races, sexes and natural origins are either insignificant or explained by non-discriminatory practices.

There has been much progress in the last 30 years, progress that can be statistically measured. But affirmative action has done much more than just provide opportunities to minorities. The main value of affirmative action is that it has educated the rest of us on the unfairness of some of our actions.

Do not let ambitious politicians and disgruntled white males use anecdotes and slogans to destroy the modest and difficult progress we have already made.

Carl Gutierrez-Jones,

Department of English

University of California

Santa Barbara, CA 93106

E-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu