A Right Path for Equal Rights

President Reagan has an opportunity to follow the trail toward equal opportunity which was blazed by Martin Luther King Jr., and praised by the President during the recent King holiday celebrations. Some in his Administration counsel choosing a different path by weakening a presidential order that requires federal contractors to try to hire and promote more women and minorities. The President should stay away from that dead end.

Reagan was absolutely right on one point at his news conference this week when he said that he had seen quotas used to discriminate against people rather than help them advance in society. For many years, but especially in the 1930s, American universities and businesses refused to admit or hire more than a small percentage of Jewish people. Asian immigrants were turned away because of quotas.

But even many people who watched quotas limit their opportunities in those days understand one thing that the President apparently does not: the executive order on hiring by federal contractors doesn’t involve quotas. There is a difference between what it does require--goals and timetables to meet them--and quotas. As a result, groups such as the American Jewish Committee, which opposes quotas, supports extending the existing executive order.

In fact, the regulations that govern the federal contracting program expressly forbid hiring goals from being interpreted as “rigid and inflexible quotas which must be met.” Instead, the rules say they should be “reasonably attainable” targets.

President Reagan says he has heard stories about employers who’ve been told by government officials or their own personnel people that they have to use hard numbers so they won’t be punished for failing to meet their goals. “. . . They choose the easy course, set down a system of numbers and say, well, we’ll go by that. And this is what we’re trying to correct,” the President told reporters. That may have happened in some cases. But as Hyman Bookbinder, speaking for the American Jewish Committee, said, “The answer for violations of the spirit of the law is not to do away with the program people are violating but to improve the enforcement of the program.”

Many business leaders support retaining the executive order. They fear the uncertainty a new order might bring. And they’ve discovered new sources of talent through hiring and promoting women and minorities. Many leaders in Congress and even within the Reagan Administration support the order because they believe it is right and because they know it is still necessary.

A society that works actively to promote the achievement of all its people was the kind of colorblind society Martin Luther King Jr. meant. He understood that often one has to help society along that course. King isn’t here to provide that help any more; it must come from the President.