Page 389 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

HEILMAN AND HAYNES
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auditing the current status of minorities and women in an organization.
Should inequities be detected, goals and timetables are identified in order
to remedy the underrepresentation of such group members. The final type
of affirmative action program can be characterized as outreach programs,
in which active efforts are made in recruitment of women and minorities
to positions in the workplace where they are underrepresented.
Regardless of the multiplicity of affirmative action program types, how­
ever, the perception of affirmative action remains relatively undifferenti­
ated. In particular, many continue to associate affirmative action with quo­
tas (Clayton & Crosby, 1992; Holloway, 1989; Kravitz & Platania, 1993;
Northcraft & Martin, 1982). There appears to be a widespread assump­
tion that affirmative action is little more than preferential selection based
solely on demographic group membership. The fact that targeted hiring,
quotas, and some types of plus factor programs have been deemed ille­
gal seems to make little difference. Our contention is that this assumption
about what affirmative action entails, even if it is not consistent with fact,
is the driving force behind the negative consequences of affirmative action
for its intended beneficiaries. As we hope will become clear to the reader,
the deleterious consequences of affirmative action we report are not the
result of the affirmative action program itself, but rather the result of how
it is perceived by others.

THE STIGMA OF INCOMPETENCE

What are the negative consequences of affirmative action, and why do they
occur? There appears to be a stigma of incompetence associated with af­
firmative action beneficiaries. This stigma has been identified and written
about by members of the community who are the intended beneficiaries of
affirmative action policies and programs (Wilkerson, 1991; Wycliff, 1990).
Shelby Steele (1990), an often heard voice in the affirmative action debate,
has written that affirmative action "tells us that racial preferences can do for
us what we cannot do for ourselves" (p. 119). Similarly, Himmelfarb (1988)
asserts that beneficiaries are likely to suffer the stigma of second-class citi­
zenship, "always laboring under the presumption, warranted or not" that
they were hired because of their race or gender and not based on their
qualifications. More recently, Justice Clarence Thomas (Grutter v. Bollinger,
2003), in his dissent to the majority opinion upholding the affirmative ac­
tion policy at the University of Michigan Law School, indicated that stu­
dents who would have been admitted even without an affirmative action
policy in place are now "tarred as undeserving" because of their implied
association with affirmative action.