Affirmative action still needed in Utah

The NAACP Opposes HJR24 (Joint Resolution on Equal Treatment). This joint resolution of the Utah Legislature proposes to amend the Utah Constitution to enact a provision prohibiting discrimination and preferential treatment by government entities. This resolution proposes to amend the Utah Constitution to: prohibit the state, public institutions of higher education and political subdivisions from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin with respect to public employment, public education or public contracting; and to provide exceptions; to authorize the Legislature to provide a remedy for a violation and provide limits for a remedy; and to provide that the prohibition is self-executing.

The NAACP strongly opposes this legislation and urges a no vote. Furthermore, we do not understand the fast pace of this purposed constitutional amendment.

Affirmative action was developed and enforced for the first time by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It is used to combat discrimination and promote equal opportunity in education and employment for all. Affirmative action is the country's obligation to provide equitable treatment for people unfairly shut out of societal systems.

In a 1965 speech at Howard University, Johnson said, "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair."

The current scope of affirmative action programs is best understood as an outgrowth and continuation of our national effort to remedy subjugation of racial and ethnic minorities and of women. Affirmative efforts did not truly take hold until it became clear that anti-discrimination statutes alone were not enough to break long-standing patterns of discrimination.

For much of the last century, racial and ethnic minorities and women have confronted legal and social exclusion. Focusing in particular on education and jobs, affirmative action policies required that active measures be taken to ensure that blacks and other minorities enjoyed the same opportunities for promotions, salary increases, career advancement, school admissions, scholarships and financial aid that had been the nearly exclusive province of whites.

Some are confused on the differences between equal employment opportunity and affirmative action.