Panel speakers discuss affirmative action

Although participants agreed that affirmative action is highly controversial, the Workforce 2000 Conference panel provided only one side of the issue. Sponsored chiefly by the Wharton School of Business and the Program for Awareness in Cultural Education, the Friday afternoon discussion concluded the day-long Workforce 2000 Conference which addressed diversity in the American workplace. The panel, entitled "Affirmative Action -- Trends, Conflicts, and Impact," featured speakers such as English Professor Herman Beavers, Temple University's Affirmative Action Director Sandra Foehl, Social Work lecturer Anu Rao, and Gene Tucker, who serves as the Schering-Plough Corporation's equal employment opportunity and workforce diversity director. Beavers began the forum with a personal account of how affirmative action has helped him. "I am a product of affirmative action," Beavers said. "I got every grade in high school that you could possibly get. My SATs were below 900 and my GPA was below 3.0." Beavers added that his poor high school performance did not imply that he did not belong in college. He said he views affirmative action as a process which allowed him to "become part of a dialogue" that would have otherwise excluded him. Foehl agreed that affirmative action is a positive institution. She stressed that affirmative action at Temple does not give jobs to unqualified candidates but rather attracts a qualified, diverse group by widening the network pool. "I haven't said anything about set-asides or preferences," Foehl explained. "We make sure our invitation is as wide as possible and we are willing to consider other than what has been traditional." While Tucker said he concurred that quotas and preferential treatment were inappropriate solutions, he also said that he supported programs in which 10 percent of jobs are set aside for women and minorities. "It would be foolish to eliminate someone because of race or gender," Tucker said. "We don't know who will come up with the next compound or marketing scheme to make the company more successful." Tucker added that affirmative action also helps his company globally. "We can't continue to just send white males into China, Africa, and South America," he explained. Tucker explained that the Schering-Plough Corporation implemented a diversity internship program which usually leads to a full-time job. Rao opened up her portion of the discussion with the observation that everything she had wanted to say about affirmative action had been said by the three other panelists. "I think affirmative action is needed and I think it's important," she said. With the aid of statistics and figures, Rao explained that women and minorities are still fighting an uphill battle towards equality in the workforce. PACE member and Social Work graduate student Tara Raju, who helped organize the event, said she recognized the single-sidedness of the discussion. "We pushed to get a pro and con side," Raju said. "But it was hard to get bright executives to speak against affirmative action on our panel." Raju added that Workforce 2000 will be an annual event, noting that she hoped the dialogue will include both sides of the issue. However, Management Professor Michael London said he thought the balance of speakers was fine. "The key thing is that it takes so much trust to have a discussion like that before you can get into the issues," he added.