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Volume 1 Number 4 THE STATUS OF THE EXECUTIVE ORDER ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Opposition by business leaders, local governments, unions, civil rights and religious groups continues to mount against Attorney General Edwin Meese's campaign to gut the Executive Order on affirmative action. But the issue is not yet resolved. Since last August the Department of Justice has been seeking to revise the Executive Order which requires the tens of thousands of employers awarded federal contracts to take positive steps, including establishing goals and timetables, to include qualified minorities and women in their workforce. Mr. Meese has proposed a revision of the Executive Order which would eliminate goals and timetables as a requirement. While a recast Meese draft says that businesses can adopt goals and timetables voluntarily, the proposal would not provide a legal basis for the use of such goals, and thus would expose employers who used them to lawsuits. Secretary of Labor William Brock has been waging a valiant fight to retain the Executive Order's goals and timetables requirement.
Reportedly, Meese, Brock, and White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan have met on several occasions to attempt to reach a compromise on the issue. Mr. Regan has insisted that a consensus recommendation be forwarded to the President. Meese and Brock have failed to reach an agreement in these meetings, and a White House official was quoted as saying "I don't see anybody in this building pushing to get this issue onto the President's desk. I see Ed Meese pushing. I see Brad Reynolds pushing. But I don't see anybody here pushing" (New York Times, January 30, 1986, B9).
Mr. Meese, and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Wm. Bradford Reynolds have insisted that the goals and timetables requirement has been abused by the Office for Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which enforces the Executive Order, and has been enforced as rigid quotas. This assertion is made although the regulations implementing the order specifically state that "Goals may not be rigid and inflexible quotas which must be met, but must be targets reasonably attainable ... " Joseph N. Cooper, Director of OFCCP, has responded that the 1965 order enforced by his office specifically forbids the use of quotas, and that he would come down hard on any employer found doing otherwise. "Nobody's ever put any cases before me that involve quotas, I'm still waiting. I don't see them" (Wash. Post, Jan. 23, 1986, A7). The number of actual debarments of companies for failure to comply with the Executive Order suggests that overzealous enforcement of the order is not a reality: During the Carter administration there were thirteen debarments, and there have been two during the current administration. Moreover, several Department of Labor studies published during the Reagan Administration have demonstrated conclusively that goals and timetables have not led to quotas. For example, The Impact of Affirmative Action, prepared by Jonathan S. Leonard under contract with the Department of Labor, established that goals and timetables have a measurable and significant impact in improving the employment of minorities and women; that the goals established by contractors were not being met with the rigidity of quotas; and that debarment actions or other sanctions were not being imposed because the goals were not being met.
Supporters of the Executive Order say if there are isolated incidents of someone using quotas, the Administration simply has to enforce the Order. There is no reason to change the Order.
In January, the National 91ack Republican Council (the official auxiliary of the Republican National Committee) passed a resolution supporting the existing Executive Order, and opposing the revisions proposed by the Department of Justice. Similarly, the Council of 100, an independent organization of Black Republicans, in a letter to the President expressed support for the current order.
Mr. President, the proposed change in the Executive Order on Affirmative Action being pushed by some members of your administration is a change that will be harmful and destructive to the interest of Council of 100 members, American Blacks and the future of our country. We fear that the proposed change will be the trigger that aborts the development of Black businesses and employment and could unleash another era of discrimination against vulnerable Americans.
  
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