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Many on both sides of the issue are waiting for the Supreme Court to make some kind of definitive pronouncement on affirmative action. In the 1978 Bakke decision the Justices barred racial quotas in university admissions, but at the same time they appeared to endorse the principle of affirmative action. And a year later, in the Weber case, the court upheld explicit hiring quotas in a voluntary affirmative action plan. Says Duke University Law Professor William Van Alstyne: "There is serious strain within the court."
If President Reagan gets the opportunity to replace a couple of liberal Justices with conservatives, the court may finally move to outlaw racial preference. "The Stotts ruling is the first piece in the puzzle," says Vanderbilt University Law Professor Thomas McCoy. "These changes at the Supreme Court and the Cabinet level will eventually be seen as the first pieces in the dismantling of affirmative action."
Still, as McCoy notes, there is "a very deeply ingrained sentiment--almost a conditioned reflex--in society that we do owe something to the victims of discrimination, and to the heirs of the victims as well." Regardless of any decrees handed down by Supreme Court Justices or Cabinet officers, affirmative action has permeated personnel offices and public bureaucracies. It may be difficult to frame precise formulas to cure past discrimination without discriminating anew. Yet many employers have begun to feel their way to a commonsense approach, trying to hire and promote minorities and women wherever possible without discriminating against white males at the same time. Not only is this a salve to the corporate conscience, but it is proving a good way to recruit talented employees.