The Top Ten Blunders in Implementing Affirmative Action

1. Using hiring and promotion quotas. This violates the Equal Employment Opportunity legal requirement of nondiscrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, and other categories. Whenever there is a conflict between EEO and Affirmative Action, EEO should win.
2. Using different standards for different groups. Completely unacceptable. How can a lower physical agility test standard for women not discriminate against men who can meet that standard but cannot pass a higher standard for men? Any employer should be able to shout its hiring standards from the rooftops. If it cannot, that's a sign of game-playing.
3. Stressing equal results instead of equal opportunity. Equal opportunity means the opportunity to succeed or fail. There are no guarantees. The goal is to discriminate solely on the basis of merit.
4. Automatically regarding women and minorities as victims. This is both condescending and inaccurate.The facts and factors of each situation should be assessed.
5. Dealing with individuals as group representatives and not as individuals. The focus should be on securing individual rights, not group rights.
6. Trying to placate community "civil rights" groups. Many of those groups care little for civil rights, but only for the advancement of their own, often narrow, agenda.
7. Putting responsibility for implementation of the Affirmative Action program solely in the hands of Human Resources or a separate Affirmative Action office. The hiring departments should be responsible for their outreach and hiring practices and should be held accountable. All EEO complaints should be investigated by a body that is separate from the HR Department.
8. Holding diversity training that alleges pervasive racism, sexism, and homophobia. Aside from the questionable accuracy of these programs, they can create a backlash from a group that is important to the success of any outreach/nondiscrimination program: white males.
9. Failing to staff the Affirmative Action program with high caliber personnel. This is no place for tokens. These individuals must be able to speak with credibility with all levels of the organization.
10. Failing to have frequent reviews by employment attorneys of the outreach and selection process. This is essential if the program is to be consistent with EEO law.