It is indeed a pleasure to be here with you to address affirmative action, an issue of great importance to me and the organization over which I preside. We and the proponents of affirmative action do not want handouts in employment, education, and public contracts. We see affirmative action as a set of positive steps that employers, educators, administrators, and governmental agencies use to promote and achieve equal employment opportunities.
Affirmative action is necessary to help level the playing field.
Those who oppose affirmative action, directly or indirectly, are inviting wholesale racial and gender discrimination into the work place. The political rhetoric against affirmative action by several presidential candidates and key Members of Congress needs to be taken very seriously. This issue is particularly sensitive at a time of corporate down sizing and major reductions in federal employment. Those fighting to defeat affirmative action are winning the war of perception in the media, newspapers, and with ordinary citizens. We have been slow in defining affirmative action and have failed to get the public response generated by the opposition.