Backward Progress

The Reagan Administration, pretending that it is colorblind, is systematically dismantling the affirmative-action programs that someday could allow the country to look beyond race, or sex, to genuine equal opportunity. Its meddling with plans already put into effect by public and private employers is at best an insensitive, legalistic interpretation of policy, and at worst a blatant attempt to undo more than a decade of civil-rights progress.

In January the Justice Department sent letters to 50 local governments suggesting that legal settlements be renegotiated in light of last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that seniority, not affirmative-action goals, took precedence in layoffs of blacks from the Memphis Fire Department. Los Angeles received one of the letters about programs in its Police and Fire Departments, as did San Diego and San Francisco.

To its credit, the Los Angeles Fire Commission has resoundingly reendorsed its commitment to affirmative-action goals in its 1974 consent decree. Commission president Ann Reiss Lane said that the department is working to recruit more minorities and has extended affirmative action to cover women. Eleven women are now working firefighters; just over a year ago there were none. The Police Commission will discuss the matter next week. It, too, should reaffirm its commitment. As Mayor Tom Bradley said, “The Justice Department is simply dead wrong in its interpretation.”

Not content with stirring up the public sector, William Bradford Reynolds, assistant attorney general, has also suggested that “voluntarily imposed preferential treatment” of minorities or women might be out of order in the private sector if it goes beyond training and recruitment. Gratuitous advice for the many private employers who find that affirmative action expands their sources of employees and executives.

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III has reconfirmed Administration policies in speeches and interviews since taking office. The department won a dubious victory in U.S. District Court this week in its suit charging that the Washington, D.C., Fire Department’s promotion plan discriminated against white employees. The Justice Department apparently has looked around the country and come to the ludicrous conclusion that the biggest civil-rights problem is that white males might be discriminated against.

Americans of many opinions have been searching for years for the best means to combat discrimination. Hiring is a risky business, and for too long the men in power in industry and the public sector simply found it easier to hire people like themselves--people with whom they knew they would be congenial. They overlooked exceptionally competent people who coincidentally were black, Latino or female. Affirmative-action programs, when encouraged from the highest levels, ensure that employers look at more people when they have job openings or promotion possibilities. That is the goal, which the Administration coldly opposes.