PERSPECTIVE ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION : No Choice but to Stay the Course : Our armed forces have shown that ending race and gender bias works to America’s strength, as it will in civilian life.

Affirmative action has been a robustly institutionalized policy in America since the days of Christopher Columbus, when Europeans affirmatively moved to fulfill their “manifest destiny” on this continent. And our colonial forefathers codified affirmative action in the Constitution when they recognized the enslavement of African peoples and women of all races in the original document. So the latest ruckus about affirmative action must stem from the fact that since April 4, 1968 (when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated), the concept has been applied to groups other than its originally intended beneficiaries: white males.

With a 476-year head start for white males, affirmative action for ethnic minorities, women and others over the past 27 years has been an uphill climb to catch up, particularly when the 10% to 20% “slices” that the policy provides still leave plenty for the guys with the head start.

Nevertheless, the American military has shown us that great results can be achieved when the policy is firmly and relentlessly applied. Who could have guessed in 1948 when President Harry S. Truman forcibly integrated the armed forces (amid a great deal of opposition) that less than half a century later, Gen. Colin L. Powell would be their decorated and celebrated leader?

Indeed, conservative though it may be in many respects (such as its position on homosexuals), the military has been in the forefront of social change in America, particularly with respect to race and gender bias. After integrating its work force in 1948, the military opened management opportunities for minority and women officers and civilians in the early 1950s; integrated its on-base schools in 1953, a year before the Supreme Court’s historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision; integrated on-base and off-base housing in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and made vendor opportunities available to minorities and women in the ‘70s and ‘80s. What made its efforts so successful was the military’s customary unswerving resolve, discipline, perseverance and recognition of teamwork as a critical element for survival.

Applying the lessons we’ve learned from the military to overall American society, we can easily deduce that current affirmative action programs can and will work quickly if we stay the course and recommit ourselves to their successful completion.

What other choices do we have? The short answer to that question is “none.” For America to maintain its preeminence as a world economic, political and moral power, we must successfully find a way to convert its rich diversity to a strength rather than allowing it to remain a festering weakness. We cannot afford to sacrifice or waste one single talent, resource or soul on the altar of racism or sexism.

I have heard the argument articulated by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and others that enough is enough. Minorities and women do not need any further public-mandate economic development assistance. Let’s go back to being a free-enterprise meritocracy and let them compete on their own. In response I would simply observe that “meritocracy” hardly characterizes what existed on this continent before April, 1968. And to suggest the abandonment of current affirmative-action policy demonstrates either an avaricious bias in favor of the historically protected class or a gross misunderstanding of the dynamic forces of diversity swirling around the world’s economy. In either case, it is a frame of mind that portends grave danger for our nation’s future.

Others have said that gender and racial discrimination may have been a problem in the past; but we’ve done some things to change its impact on women and minorities. Now, we’re sufficiently attuned to the problem and we’ll never let it happen again; but to retain any policy--including affirmative action--that favors one race or gender over another is morally wrong and no longer acceptable.

Although great progress has been made, the fight to remedy the vestiges of past transgressions has not been completed; the battle to develop traditionally disadvantaged and underutilized segments of our society has not been won. Moreover, the ominous specter of “cultural recidivism,” wherein American society slips back to its sexist, racist habits, cannot be ignored.

We Americans are better served by recognizing our lack of choice in this situation and re-characterizing the constraint as a magnificent opportunity to lead all humankind toward development and prosperity in the 21st Century through self-aggrandizing decency.

Thus, as has occurred so often in our nation’s past, doing the right thing morally will be a wonderful byproduct of implementing sound business practices.