What's so affirmative about it?

I realize that I may be painting a metaphorical bull’s-eye on myself by exploring the topic to follow. However, this justifies the name of my blog. For some time now, I have not been thrilled with affirmative action. Granted, if people were always fair and selected new hires or students based strictly on qualifications, there would be no need for this. It’s a shame that we need to establish such practices. I worked for a few months in the Equal Employment Opportunity section of a federal gov’t Human Resources office. While I was there, I learned that career fairs and recruiting must be conducted in a diverse environment or in several locations so as not to give one race more exposure to the opening. I somewhat saw the reasoning. So, I posed this question to my non-white supervisor. “Can a manager recruit strictly from Harvard or just Ivy league schools?” The answer was a somewhat anticipated “no”. The reasoning, of course, was that these schools are predominantly attended by white students. Here is the problem. Harvard has already done the recruiting, from the very diverse entire country, for the manager. High school students across the country know about Harvard. If someone is among the elite, he or she can be accepted. This is without regard to who you are or where you live… e.g. white in Montana, Hispanic in southern Texas or Miami FL, Asian in a Chinatown, or black in center city Philadelphia. If you are the best of the best, the best schools will want you. Of course this policy extends across national borders and oceans, but that isn’t pertinent to the issue. The rules of recruiting are not even the biggest problem. Not only are schools and businesses scrutinized or penalized for not selecting a variety of ethnicities, but quotas devalue those who are hired. I would like to be hired based on my ability to add value to a corporation, not because they need one more person of whatever background occupying a cube. If affirmative action gets you a job, you’ll get paid, but wouldn’t you prefer to have the job because you are superior to the other candidates? Naturally, you would. Such is the story of another good intention gone wrong. This makes me ask myself… “Would I state my race as Hispanic for my own advancement?” I’d like to say not. Ignorance is bliss…