FREE ESSAY ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN FLORIDA

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN FLORIDA

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Recently Governor Jeb Bush has pushed for the passage of a plan he calls ONE 
FLORIDA, an executive order to abolish affirmative action in the state of Florida.
Through the 
history of affirmative action in our country and its ensuing abolition, politicians and
society at 
large are ever debating the merits of a racially based admissions, hiring, and
contracting 
program. With anti-affirmative programs already in effect in both California and Texas,
Florida 
is following suit with a college admissions program designed to diversify college student
bodies 
without becoming racially discriminatory. Also incorporated into ONE FLORIDA are new 
standards in both hiring and contracting. To better understand these changes we must look
at 
the history of affirmative action and later, whether or not it is constitutional.
The term affirmative action predates the civil rights movement. According to John
Skrentny, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, the basic
idea 
comes from the centuries-old English legal concept of equity or the administration of
justice 
according to what was fair in a particular situation, as opposed to rigidly following
legal rules, 
which may have a harsh result (Skrentny 6). The phrase affirmative action was first used
in 
the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, and it referred to employers discriminating
against 
union members. In 1961, with the enactment of President John F. Kennedy's Executive Order

10925, advising employers to take affirmative action to ensure nondiscrimination, the
term 
became synonymous with the civil rights movement (Bloch 70). President Lyndon B.
Johnson's 
Executive Order 11246 expanded on the civil rights issue by ordering contracting firms
with the 
federal government to take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and
that 
employees are treated during employment without regards to race, creed, color or national

origin (qtd. in Skrentny 7). Eventually affirmative action was included in private hiring

practices and college admissions programs throughout the country.
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This ideal called affirmative action has now come to mean reverse discrimination when 
one race or gender is shown preferential treatment in admissions or hiring. In state
colleges 
such as Florida State University and the University of Florida, some minority students
are 
admitted solely on the basis of color, excluding qualified white applicants, to diversify
the 
make-up of the student body. With the enactment of FLORIDA ONE diversification will be 
based on race-neutral socioeconomic factors...[without regards] to race or ethnicity, as
well as 
factors such as income level, geography, special talents and whether an applicant is a
first 
generation college student (Equity in Education). Included in Governor Bush's plan is the

Talented 20 program. This program will guarantee admissions to any Florida state school
to the 
top 20% of all seniors graduating public high school in the state regardless of SAT or
ACT 
scores. Bush believes that as a result of the Talented 20 program, approximately 1,200 
additional minority high school students will be given the opportunity to attend a state

university (ONE FLORIDA Myths). However, the Talented 20 does not guarantee admissions 
into the university of choice. It also does not replace the current admissions process.
The 
Talented 20 is in addition to the regular admissions process. The Governor proposes
additional 
funding to accommodate this additional students (ONE FLORIDA Myths). ONE FLORIDA is 
also designed to help all facets of education in Florida by asking the Legislature to
increase 
funding for need-based aid by $20 million.
We will seek $1.6 million to ensure all 10th grade children take the Preliminary 
Scholastic Achievement Test, $2.4 million to expand Florida's On-Line High School 
to target students in D and F schools, $10 million for the Governor's Mentoring 
Initiative, and a $1 million increase in funding for the College Reach Out Program. 
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We will also pay incentive bonuses for teaching Advanced Placement Courses on our 
low performing schools.(Equity in Education) 
In the improved version of ONE FLORIDA, the Governor's Executive Budget has 
recommended an increase of $36 million for [A+ Supplemental Instruction], as well as
other 
intervention strategies and activities to improve student achievement (Improvements to
ONE 
FLORIDA). In addition the College Board partnership will provide free on-line access to
SAT 
preparation activities for all Florida high school students. By these increases in
funding, 
Governor Bush is ensuring that more minority students who are planning to attend college
are 
better prepared to meet the requirements for both admissions and the rigors of
postsecondary 
education (Equity in Education). 
It is a proven fact that students who are not properly prepared for postsecondary 
education and are admitted on the basis of race or gender do not fare as well as truly
qualified 
white students. Robert M. O'Neil, attorney and Vice President of Indiana University,
published
a study of white law students vs. black ones. The study conducted by Professor George N.

Stevens in conjunction with the Association of American Law Schools Bar Examination Study

Project, carefully observed 1,042 minority students during their three years in law
school and 
when taking the bar examination (68). According to Stevens' findings, 154 minority
students 
were dismissed for academic reasons ~ a rate higher than that for white-Anglo
students...167 
students simply disappeared...and 100 of these students withdrew voluntarily during the
three 
years(qtd. in O'Neal 69). Stevens goes on to report that out of 408 graduates who took
the bar 
examination only 56% of blacks passed, and that the success rate was about half that of 
regular students (qtd. in O'Neal 69). From this study we learn that admissions by race do
not 
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ensure success for minority students. With Governor Bush's ONE FLORIDA plan, statistics 
such as these would become obsolete as students are better prepared for and more
successful in 
the postsecondary and graduate systems.
With success in school comes the hope of success in the work place. With the 
implementation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination in the work
place 
ended. Farrell Bloch, an economic and statistical consultant in Washington D.C.,
summarizes 
Title VII (as amended) as the prohibition of discrimination against individuals on
grounds of 
race, color, religion, sex, or national origin by private, state, and local government
employers 
with atleast fifteen employees (49). The practice of reverse-discrimination by employers
hiring 
applicants based on race, gender and national origin will diminish as ONE FLORIDA opens
the 
door of opportunity equally to both black and white men and women. This is not to say
that the 
practice of set asides, preferences, and quotas will be completely eliminated. According
to 
Senator Steven Geller, an advocate of anti-affirmative action, these hiring practices
were 
always on a voluntary basis in Florida. It has been up to employers to set quotas...
Employers 
have an interest in affirmative action because it is fundamentally fair to have a diverse
and 
representative workforce (personal interview). In accordance with this theory, Ronald 
Anderson and Ivan Fox, co-authors of Business Law & the Legal Environment, claim that 
affirmative action plans (AAP's) have been drawn to aid employers in recruiting, hiring
and 
training minorities and woman, as well as enabling these employees to advance in their 
company (757). Anderson and Fox go on to give the criteria for a permissible AAP:
1.The affirmative action should be in connection with a plan.
2.There must be a showing that affirmative action is justified as a remedial measure.
The plan must be remedial to open opportunities in occupations closed to the
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protected classes of Title VII or designed to break down old patterns of racial
segregation and hierarchy.
3.The plan must be voluntary.
4.The plan must not unnecessarily trammel the interests of whites.
5.The plan must be temporary.(757)
The use of AAP's containing quotas, preferences, and quotas have not always met with
success. 
William Bopp and Donald Schultz, both former California police officers, expand on the 
problems with the quota system in their collaboration, Principles of American Law 
Enforcement and Criminal Justice:
Police departments are now embarking on extraordinary programs aimed at 
recruiting minority-group citizens into law enforcement. Although some would set 
strict quotas of black-white ratios on police agencies, quotas have proved in varying 
ways, unworkable. Those departments that have experienced success in minority 
recruitment have done so not by setting quotas, dropping standards, or instituting 
heavy-handed recruitment devices. If an applicant is able to meet strict, but fair 
standards, race, creed, and nationality considerations should be ignored. (377)
ONE FLORIDA replaces this out-of-date voluntary program of preferential treatment for one

that expands opportunities for minorities as well as whites and increases diversity
without 
discriminating. 
Governor Bush has put his theory of diversification without the sacrifice of quality into

practice in his own administration. He is committed to hiring both minorities and woman
in 
high level positions, as shown by his Chief of Staff, General Counsel, Budget
Director,Chief 
Inspector General, the Director of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development (OTTED)and 
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the Secretaries of the Departments of Labor, Lottery and Elder Affairs (Equity in
Hiring). 
Also, hiring in the judiciary will not be affected by ONE FLORIDA as Governor Bush's 
appointments of African-Americans and Hispanics already total 40% of all judicial 
appointments and women another 40% (Equity in Hiring). Bush's plan is obviously not to
take 
jobs away from minorities, but to give even more opportunities to them.
Opportunities such as federal and state contracts for minorities will not be hindered by

ONE FLORIDA either. Statistics show that at present less than 1% of all available state 
contracting is done with certified racial and ethnic minority businesses under the
current 'goals' 
system (Equity in Contracting). Bush believes that a percentage such as this is low
because 
few minority businesses in South Florida even bother to go through the state
certification 
process. The current process for state certification is almost identical to that of the
local 
process, making it a doubly tedious task to obtain both state and local certifications
(ONE 
FLORIDA Myths). ONE FLORIDA will streamline the process in order to give minority 
businesses the opportunity to participate in state contracting. In addition to
streamlining the 
application process, the requirements for certification will become less rigid. The
Governor has 
asked Legislation to consider using gross sales rather than net worth as the measure of
size for 
certification (Improvements to the ONE FLORIDA Initiative). Currently the law sets 
certification limits on minority businesses that exceed a net worth of $3 million. These

innovations will hopefully encourage more minorities to apply for certification.
Once certification is no longer an issue, the task of building relationships between 
procuring agents and minority businesses must be addressed. One major problem that Bush
sees 
is that much of Florida's state business is done as a result of long-standing
relationships 
between State procurement agents and vendors, minority businesses often find it difficult
to 
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break in(Equity in Contracting). Seeing as the bulk of the minority population and its 
businesses are located in South Florida, ONE FLORIDA proposes that by moving the Office 
to the Department of Management Services, where the majority of procurement activities
take 
place, the Office will be more successful in helping procurement agents find and recruit

qualified minority businesses (Equity in Contracting).
ONE FLORIDA will also improve on financial and technical assistance programs that 
aid in the development of minority businesses, minority construction firms, and minority

franchises. Governor Bush will implement what he calls a 'lending tree' of banks which 
would form loan pools for contract loans, lines of credit, and capital infusion
(Improvements) 
to help develop legitimate minority enterprises. Also being proposed is a race-neutral
program 
of assistance to firms in economically disadvantaged areas (Equity in Contracting).
However, 
businesses will still be required to prove that they are minority owned, and the
penalties for 
fraud will be severe and strictly enforced.
Through the many revisions of ONE FLORIDA, non-discrimination still remains a key 
point in the program. For instance, the plan calls for a system that will allow the state
to 
effectively investigate and punish discrimination by state procurement agents
(Improvements). 
The plan goes on to state that state employees determined to have participated in race or

gender discrimination will undergo disciplinary action, up to and including termination 
(Improvements). In the case of businesses, [those] found to have filed a complaint of
discrimination in bad faith will be barred from competing for State business for a period
not to 
exceed five years (Improvements 3). ONE FLORIDA , although determined to eliminate hiring

and contracting based on race and gender, is designed to still protect the rights of the
individual 
against discrimination. 
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Opponents of ONE FLORIDA, such as Attorney General Bob Butterworth argue that 
any anti-affirmative action plan is still discriminatory and unconstitutional. In a
Sun-Sentinel 
news article, he is quoted as saying, the ballot measures' language violates many
requirements 
constitutional amendments must meet before being put before voters (qtd. in Kennedy). He

goes on to add, you must be fair, you cannot deceive the public, and that's what [these 
initiatives] do (qtd. in Kennedy). Butterworth's argument is only valid when discussing
the 
precise language in ONE FLORIDA. The term people is used in its summary, whereas the 
term persons is used in the text of the document. Persons under Florida law can be 
considered to include corporations, while people may not (Kennedy). Butterworth considers

this to be another ambiguity that should bar the measures from the ballot (qtd. in
Kennedy). 
Butterworth and his supporters are trying to fight the ONE FLORIDA proposition not on the

Constitutional rights of freedom and equality, but on constitutional technicalities.
Sun-Sentinel 
writer, John Kennedy describes how the Florida Constitution places strict requirements on

ballot initiatives...the most rigorous is that a measure may encompass only one subject 
(Kennedy). The fact that ONE FLORIDA touches on education employment, and contracting is

enough to give affirmative action supporters the grounds they need to bring their case
before the 
Florida Supreme Court. However, according to the above news article, 435,329 registered 
voters' signatures are needed to place amendments to the Constitution before
voters...only 
43,500 were collected (Kennedy). Anti-affirmative action advocates have already countered

with the circulation of four petitions: the first initiative bans affirmative action in
public 
employment, public education, and public contracting, and the other three target
individual 
areas. Butterworth still contends that  each initiative still violates the single-subject
rule (qtd. 
in Kennedy).
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The question of ONE FLORIDA being constitutional or not should not be based on 
precise language and technicalities. We live in a country based on the rights of the
individual. 
Our Bill of Rights is comprised of ideas to protect the average citizen from moral and
societal 
wrongs. Amendments XV (1870) and XIX (1920) gave the fundamental right to vote to 
minorities and women respectively. These amendments furthered the thinking of our
forefathers 
who founded this country on the beliefs of freedom and equality for all. The creators of
the 
Constitution modeled it as a living document, whereas it could change as society did. In
the 
1960's and 1970's affirmative action was the right course for our country to take.
Discrimination 
and segregation ran rampant in those decades and a solution was needed to ensure civil
rights 
for every American regardless of race, gender, or national origin. Today though, this
sort of 
thinking is out-of-date as society's views of our diverse population have expanded. We
live in a 
society now that not only encompasses whites and African-Americans, but persons from
every 
corner of the world. The gay movement in the United States has provided us with yet
another 
segment of the population which needs protecting, but none of these groups should ever
have 
an advantage over another just because they belong to a particular group. America must
always 
remain diversified in order to remain a world power. Our diversification makes us the
beautiful 
Melting Pot that the rest of the world looks up to.
With the implementation of ONE FLORIDA in our own South Florida melting pot, 
we will see more diversification and opportunities than ever before. Due to extra funding
for 
education, standardized tests and practice exams will now be afforded to every high
school 
student planning to attend college, no matter if they attend an A school or an F school 
(Improvements to the ONE FLORIDA Initiative). Programs initiated by Governor Bush will 
give children the motivation to improve themselves in school, instead of just getting by

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because preferential treatment is shown them. Our children will now be received solely on

merit not only in Florida state universities, but universities around the country as
well. After 
college many opportunities will be available to them in the work force because of ONE 
FLORIDA. Quotas by that time will be completely abolished, giving every man and woman an

equal opportunity enter into the career they have been properly prepared for in school.
Those 
that choose to go into business for themselves will have the backing of the great State
of 
Florida. Contracting and procurement will be open to all facets of business, especially
those that 
are minority owned. With ONE FLORIDA also comes more stringent penalties for 
discrimination (Equity in Contracting). The greatest myth of anti-affirmative action is
that 
we will return to kind of society we abandoned in the 60' and 70's. ONE FLORIDA will
still 
provide protection against the archaic thinking of those decades. ONE FLORIDA does not 
advocate discrimination, only that race, gender, and national origin should be taken out
of the 
equation when it comes to education, hiring, and contracting. Governor Bush has come up 
with the solution needed in this state without returning to the old-fashioned ideas of
quotas, 
preferences, and lowering job standards to make all South Floridians equal. There is such
a 
thing as diversification without discrimination and Bush has done the right thing by
following 
the anti-affirmative action practices already implemented in other states. Plans in both

California and Texas have already proven to be successful. If ONE FLORIDA makes it to the

ballot this November, Governor Bush, as well as all South Floridians, will be waiting
with 
bated breath as we see the outcome.
In his own words, Governor Bush states that there are two paths to diversity in Florida:

diversity can be achieved by preferential treatment or diversity can be achieved by
expanding 
opportunity, outreach and recruitment. ONE FLORIDA seeks to expand opportunity (Myths). 
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Sources Cited
Anderson, Ronald A., Ivan Fox, and David P. Twomey. Business Law & the Legal 
Environment. Ed. Robert Dewey. 16th ed. Cincinnati, OH: Southwestern Publishing. 
1996. 757.
Bloch, Farrell. Antidiscrimination Law and Minority Employment. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago

Press. 1994. 48-49, 70.
Bopp, William J., and Donald O. Schultz. Principles of American Law Enforcement and 
Criminal Justice. Springfield, IL: Thomas. 1972. 377.
Bush, Jeb. Equity in Contracting Plan. One Florida. 1999. 10 June 2000 
*http://www.flgov.com*.
---. Equity in Education. One Florida. 1999. 10 June 2000 *http://www.flgov.com*.
---. Equity in Hiring. One Florida. 1999. 10 June 2000 *http://www.flgov.com*.
---. ONE FLORIDA Myths. 1999. 10 June 2000 *http://www.flgov.com*.
---. Improvements to the ONE FLORIDA Initiative. One Florida. 2000. 10 June 2000 
*http://www.flgov.com*.
Geller, Steven. Personal interview. 9 June 2000.
Kennedy, John. Top Lawyer Says Ballot Items Illegal. Sun-Sentinel 24 Nov. 1999: 6B.
O'Neil, Robert M. Discriminating Against Discrimination. Ontario: Fitzhenry & Whiteside 
Limited. 1985. 68-69.
Skrentny, John David. The Ironies of Affirmative Action. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

1996. 6-7.
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Outline
Thesis: Recently Governor Bush has pushed for the passage of a plan he calls ONE FLORIDA,

an executive order to abolish affirmative action in the state of Florida. Through the 
history of affirmative action in our country and its ensuing abolition, politicians and 
society at large are ever debating the merits of a racially based admissions, hiring, and

contracting program.
I.The term affirmative action predates the civil rights movement.
II.Governor Bush's Talented 20 program guarantees admission to Florida state
universities
to the top 20% of graduating classes.
III.It is a proven fact that students who are not properly prepared for postsecondary 
education do not fare well. 
IV.With success in school, comes the hope of success in the work place.
V.Governor Bush has put his theory of diversification without the sacrifice of quality
into 
practice in his own administration.
VI. The problems of certifications and procurements in contracting must be addressed.
VII.Through the many revisions of ONE FLORIDA, non-discrimination still remains a key 
point of the program.
VIII.Opponents of ONE FLORIDA that any anti-affirmative action plan is both
discriminatory and unconstitutional.
IX.Our Bill of Rights is comprised of ideas to protect the average citizen from moral
and
societal wrongs.
X.With the implementation of ONE FLORIDA, we will see more diversification and 
opportunities than ever before.