Word: action
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...companies may find that Weber will bring even more pressure on them-not just from blacks-to set up affirmative-action programs. For instance, Vilma Martinez, head of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, says that Hispanics will see the ruling as "the means to open doors that have been closed for too long." Women's groups believe Weber may help them expand their already considerable gains. Even some white ethnic groups that feel left out in the scramble for economic opportunity, such as Poles, Italians, Ukrainians and Czechs, may interpret Weber as a challenge that they...
...Weber decision is very narrow, in that it deals only with quotas that favor blacks. It says nothing about other minorities or women. Yet legal experts agree that in practice Weber will help not only blacks but other racial minorities, like Hispanics. It is less clear that affirmative-action programs that favor women will benefit from Weber. In discrimination cases, courts have typically been much more forthright in upholding the claims of minorities than of women. Weber is not likely to be of much use to white ethnic groups; hiring preferences that favor them would be vulnerable to reverse-discrimination...
Though the decision stressed the importance of employers voluntarily setting up affirmative-action programs, it is likely that the government will use Weber to push for outright quota systems for minorities. Says Stanley Kaleczyc, associate general counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: "This decision will give the EEOC more reason to press companies that have been laying back...
Brennan did not address the issue, but it is clear that the EEOC can obtain court-ordered affirmative action, including quotas, if it proves past discrimination. Most affirmative-action programs exist because employers cannot get federal contracts without them. Last week the Government said it would no longer buy from Uniroyal, charging that the company had balked at setting up an affirmative-action program for women. Uniroyal is only the 21st company to be so penalized in 15 years, but it is the biggest-with $35 million in outstanding Government contracts...
Weber does not say how far an employer can go to give preference to minorities over whites. But to be safe from Weber-type challenges, an affirmative-action program would have to avoid excluding whites altogether, deal with job categories that have traditionally been segregated, and avoid firing whites to make room for blacks. It also must be "temporary." Justice Brennan noted with approval that when the percentage of black skilled workers at the Kaiser plant approximates the percentage of blacks in the local labor force, the program will...