The affirmative action plan states that Duke University acts affirmatively to offer equal opportunity in employment. The University also has affirmative action programs for veterans and for persons with disabilities. Through these programs, the university takes affirmative steps to employ and promote qualified veterans and persons with disabilities. The executive order only requires employers to engage in outreach and other efforts to broaden the pool of qualified candidates to include groups previously excluded. The selection decision to hire, promote, or lay off is to be made on a nondiscriminatory basis.
Affirmative action gives everyone a chance to be judged on individual ability.
Affirmative action does not require an employer to hire a person who lacks the qualifications to perform the job successfully, hire the unqualified, or hire a less qualified person in preference to a more qualified one. Affirmative action gives women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans a chance to compete. Affirmative action never has been intended to require or create preferences. Nor does it entail hiring or promoting the unqualified. Moreover, affirmative action is not merely a race issue, but benefits women, persons with disabilities, and veterans under Executive Order 11246, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Section 4212 of the Vietnam era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 all of which require affirmative action programs.