More Real People Affected by Equal Opportunity

Sharon Arnold

"Affirmative action has helped me because I had all the experience [in highway construction]...Knowing the 'good ole boy' system and working in it, I would literally never have had the opportunity."

Paulette M. Balich

"My very first opportunity at New England Telephone (today NYNEX) was because of their efforts to diversify the work force. NET was looking to bring women into their predominantly male Plant organization.

Susan Bianchi-Sand

"...My airline career led me to the union movement, where I was again helped by Affirmative Action practices. After I became president of my union, the Association of Flight Attendants, I ran for vice-president of the AFL-CIO... Affirmative Action policies helped establish an environment in which that was possible.

Major Fabienne Brooks

"I am the first African-American female to be promoted to Major. I'm the highest-ranking African-American female in the state of Washington. I'm the first African-American female in the state to attend the FBI National Academy. (My uncle was the first African American to attend, in 1965.) I didn't do this on my own. There were people before me, men and women, black and white, who had an impact. Affirmative action programs have helped many women to gain access to jobs historically dominated by white men."

Susan Eisenberg

"As 'character-building' as it was to be 'pioneers of the industry,' the resistance to accepting women as equal partners has taken a physical and emotional toll that is not at all glamorous. . . . Tradeswomen with years of experience still struggle for respect. The informal hiring networks all tradeworkers depend on in a fluctuating industry are less available to women.

Elsa Lai Fan

"Fortunately, at the time you began your school and government work California was a state which supported widening opportunities for women. As part of the Upward Mobility program, you were able to benefit from education training that prepared you for your professional career as an economist. This important program, through education, enabled you to hone your computer and database skills.

Bernadette Gross

"Although I had always been interested in carpentry, I never thought of it as an option for me... Because a company had an affirmative action program, I got on the job site. Once on the job, I was told things like 'if you can't cut it, you'll be gone by noon'. From 7:00 am to noon, the work was harder, however, once I proved that I could do the work, I began to gain respect from the male workers, and opened doors for other women.

Chief Penny E. Harrington

"As Director of the National Center for Women & Policing, a division of the Feminist Majority Foundation, I have seen the benefit of affirmative action programs. I was a police officer in Portland, Oregon for over 23 years and was the first woman to be chief of Police of a major U.S. city.

Cynthia Hartwig

"My small business was almost completely homogenous. It didn't occur to me that something was missing in my work force until I. started working on city and state government contracts where all colors of the rainbow work together. It was there I noticed a richness of colors and points of view where people like Barbara were not so much colored but colorful -- colorful in the way they looked at things.

Jane Jervis

"I have been the president of Evergreen State College, a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington, since 1992. Evergreen is my fourth job. In each of those four jobs I was the first woman ever hired. In each of those four jobs, I would not have been considered as a candidate except for affirmative action. Everyone knew that the dean had to be a man. The president had always been a man. That's what a dean or a president looks like.

Gloria T. Johnson

"In the spirit of affirmative action, the AFL-CIO opened a seat on its executive council to the president of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, a position I have been elected to since 1993.

Nancy Lennstrom

"As affirmative action became better understood, my name was kept in the pool as the "token" woman, but no serious .consideration given to me despite my qualifications. I continued to apply, if for no other reason than to educate screening committees that there were qualified women candidates available and anxious for new challenges. Eventually, I achieved a full Deanship at the largest Community College in Washington, primarily due to affirmative action.

Randy Loomens

"I started out in a [iron working] class with five other women and at the end of my three-year apprenticeship I was the only woman that completed the program. Iron work is hard but it's hard for men too. It wasn't always easy, but it was an adventure. Affirmative action gave me access and opportunity to the trades. I asked for no special treatment, my success was up to me.

Captain Lory Manning

"Over the course of the '70s and '80s, military women became aviators, began to serve on some Navy ships, were promoted to admiral and general, became unit commanders, and won admission to the service academies. At each step of the way, there were nay-sayers who were convinced that allowing women to take the next step-whatever it was-would weaken our armed forces, but with each new step women proved they could do the job just as well as the men with whom they were serving.

Elaine Martin

"When my family and I were faced with losing our farm in 1986, affirmative action allowed me an opportunity to save the farm. The affirmative action office set up by the Idaho Department of Transportation helped advise me about agents and lawyers who understood women-owned businesses and were willing to take a chance on my startup company.

Leona Martin

"Some of my friends remember how people rejoiced when the first black woman was hired as an elevator operator at a downtown store in the City of Boston, and when black people were first hired as sales people. We, as a people, are still proud and rejoice over the first venture into any area where blacks were not originally allowed. We are proud to share our educational achievements, because so many of us remember that our forebearers were not allowed to read or write."

Prema Mathai-Davis

"Affirmative action programs provide opportunity for all people and the reform of these programs must be undertaken with great care. Unfortunately, discrimination affects the lives of millions of people in our country every day. Affirmative action programs are about people and families and ensuring equal opportunity in all aspects of our lives, including housing, employment, education and healthcare.

Nancy G. Maynard

"In graduate school, my most important brush with a de facto affirmative action came through the personal actions of a mentor, professor, and researcher at the University of Miami Marine Laboratory who included 2 females in his group of graduate students to do his field work in the Everglades and at sea. Not only did he firmly believe that we could do the work, but also he was a champion in pushing back barriers which allowed us to go to sea on oceanographic ships to collect the data needed for our research. Women had been prohibited from going to sea and he forced a change of policy.

Jennifer Mejo

"Now, a product of Washington Public Schools - complete with standard programs directly resulting from affirmative action - I reside at Smith College pursuing my undergraduate degree as a double major.

Alma Morales

"I was my high school's class valedictorian and was offered many Texas State university scholarships yet I could not even get a decent part-time job to pay for my books because I was not the right color skin, accent or last name. It was no surprise that I marched in the 60's, protested in the 70's and then in 1980 was hired as a consultant to write the first affirmative action Plan and Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Plan for the Offices of the Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff, Department of Defense.

Karen Narasaki

"I also benefitted from affirmative action when I was preparing to graduate from UCLA law school. I was third in my class and had two years experience working for a corporate consulting firm, yet I would never have gotten the opportunity to be considered for one of the largest law firms in the Pacific Northwest but for a special recruitment effort.

Edward Paulino

"Affirmative Action has given me the access to countless opportunities. For me, Affirmative Action began in 1987 as a senior in Seward Park High School in the Lower East Side of New York City. I had an 83 average and had scored a combined 680 on my SATs. But despite these scores, I knew I was good in history and geography. Ever since my third grade teacher, Ms. Lomazo, told the class "Edward is really good at geography" I always found this topic easy. Indeed, I scored an 85 on my state history regents in 1987 - without even studying! I partly thank PBS for all those nights I soaked up documentaries on history and culture from the tenth floor of my bedroom in the Alfred E. Smith Housing Projects. I knew about college. My cousin was a freshman at SUNY/New Paltz. But there was no real expectation from either my family or myself that college was required. Both my parents, Dominican immigrants, never finished the second grade. I had limited options. I definitely didn't want to join the army. And there were no jobs that I saw myself doing after high school.

"Not bad for a Dominican New York City kid who still lives in the projects where he grew up approximately fifteen blocks from where the Twin Towers once stood. Lastly, Affirmative Action means that I'm a better citizen. It means I don't want to burn the U.S. flag. It means I want my 401K to grow. I worry about taxes. I want to have a family I can be proud of in a neighborhood that is as economically diverse as it is ethnically. I want peace. And, I want my students at John Jay (a Hispanic-serving institution) to look at me and say, if he can do it, so can I; as they so eagerly expressed through their smiles and in their enthusiastic handshakes at the end of my last lecture for the semester. It means despite growing up poor and cynical like many Americans who lack an opportunity to attend college, EOP gave me access to a place where I could acquire knowledge and skills that I now possess which means I can contribute to society. I have a stake in this society. In this sense Affirmative Action is very democractic. Democratization through the access of higher education. Never stop learning."

Lynn Povich

"When the current laws were put on the books in 1964, a large number of well-educated women made up a ready pool of talent in many industries. That was the case when I took part in a sex-discrimination suit against Newsweek in 1970. As a result of our action, the doors finally opened, and women, who had previously been trapped in research, went on to be White House correspondents, war correspondents and even senior editors, which I became in 1975. I would never have been offered that position had there been no legal pressure from the government. Succeeding at the job was up to me.

Elisa Maria Sanchez

"Affirmative Action in several instances made it possible for me to be the first Latina or woman to be hired in management or administration. In all instances I was competing for a position where candidates had similar experience and background but because a Latina or woman had never been a manager/administrator, I was given the opportunity.

Gail Shaffer

"Thanks to affirmative action, I served as a CEO of a large agency, and had the opportunity to develop management skills. I also was positioned to be an agent for change to enlarge the circle of opportunity for others, by promoting affirmative action in the workplace and demonstrating that achieving greater diversity, and including different perspectives in policy decisions, results in better ideas, richer discussions, better results for the entire organization.

Linda Spoolstra

"I was elected to an important position on the national staff of my denomination, American Baptist Churches, USA. Leaders in the denomination, with the support of affirmative action policies... I was interviewed, nominated, and then elected. Some were skeptical that a "woman pastor" from a small church could do the job. Adding women to the council was one of the strategies used in the eighties to provide a more inclusive leadership for the Church. Without affirmative action policies, I would never have had the opportunity to serve in that position.

Lisa Stone

"I know our founders hoped there would be less need for the [Northwest Women's]Law Center's advocacy in 1998 than there was in 1978. Well, we know that's not true. It's especially not true in Washington State right now, as we fight to retain affirmative action. This battle is crucial to women and to women's rights supporters - women and men who believe in equality and justice.

Barbara Earl Thomas

"It was 1978 when I first started at the Seattle Arts Commission. I can still see the headline of the local arts magazine - Selected - Barbara Thomas, a woman and black in a Woman's Enclave. I remember being stunned. Yeah, I'm a woman, and a black - OK, I guess for some people this is news?

Carolyn Viebrock

"Our Foundation scholarship program for women, for example, is truly an affirmative action success story! We know that women continue to face economic inequities in all phases of their lives from unequal pay to the glass ceiling to retirement security. These are some of the reasons why we actively support our scholarship program that is specifically focused on women.

Kim Weems

"As an undergraduate, I attended Spelman College, an all-female historically black institution in Atlanta, Georgia. There, African-American women surrounded me in my mathematics classes that were taught primarily by African-American female professors. It was a nurturing environment where I was encouraged to explore my interests. Finally, it became clear to me; not only did I want to major in mathematics, but I also wanted to be a mathematician. Thus, I began to take more advanced courses in preparation for a doctoral degree.

"Being awarded my PhD has been incredibly rewarding; however, there were challenges that I faced along the way. At times, I was the only female or the only African-American in my classes. Also, some people seemed surprised that I was advancing through the program. But, overall my experiences have been positive. I am very much indebted to my African-American predecessors, particularly the women, whose paths to higher education in mathematics were not as easy as mine. I am extremely grateful for the struggles that they endured in order to open up opportunities for me today. I am also indebted to the affirmative action programs and fellowships that were available to me and which helped me to succeed in my chosen field. My advice for aspiring African-American women mathematicians is to build a strong support structure, to work hard, and to have confidence in your abilities."