Fletcher, “Father of Affirmative Action”
July 29, 2005
On July 12, a man referred to as the “father of affirmative action” passed away at his home in Washington, D.C. Arthur Fletcher defied all labels because he was truly bigger than all of them. At 6′4″, he had been a defensive end for the Los Angeles Rams, and in 1954, the first black player for the Baltimore Colts.
Born in Phoenix and raised as a military child, he never lived under segregation in the Deep South. As a seventh-grader in Oklahoma City, however, he heard civil rights pioneer Mary McLeod Bethune speak, and decided he wanted to devote his life to civil rights.
After graduating from college in Kansas, serving in the Army under General George Patton, and getting his law degree in Chicago, Fletcher got involved in Republican politics as vice chairman of the Kansas Republican Party in the mid-1950s. According to an obituary, “He considered himself a member of the party of Abraham Lincoln, and he believed it was vital for blacks to be active and influential in the two major parties.”
Serving as Nixon’s Assistant Secretary of Labor in the late 1960s, Fletcher created a plan that required federal construction workers in Philadelphia to set goals for hiring minorities, which became a model for affirmative action programs.
“I’m proud to say I set the stage for today’s workplace and workforce diversity efforts,” he told Fortune magazine.
Fletcher went on to serve President Ford as a deputy assistant for urban affairs, President Reagan as an adviser and the first President Bush as chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR). However, Fletcher did not just accept the party line on every issue. He called Reagan “the worst president for civil rights in this century” and denounced Bush for labeling civil rights legislation a “quota bill.”
Fletcher’s devotion to affirmative action was so strong that he decided to challenge Senator Robert J. Dole for the GOP presidential nomination in 1996 after Dole repudiated affirmative action.
“My party has designed a top-down strategy, which says the wealthy, the rich, the affluent belong to this party,” he said when announcing his White House bid. “It’s time to stop that and say there’s room for anybody who wants to participate in the Republican Party.”
Unfortunately, Arthur Fletcher has passed on before seeing the GOP return to its roots. The current Bush administration has appointed a few high-profile minority leaders, but its employment, pension and war-related policies have done much to undermine the black community that was championed by leaders such as Fletcher.
As just one example, consider the current state of the USCCR. Decades ago, it was a robust collector of information and disseminator of reports that measured our nation’s progress toward equal opportunity and civil rights enforcement. Ever since President Bush came to power in 2001, however, the USCCR has been under attack by the GOP.
As with other government agencies that regulate and oversee business interests treated as sacred by the Bush administration, the USCCR has suffered from insufficient staff and resources to conduct comprehensive hearings and do field research. Despite these limitations, the USCCR staff has produced a number of top-quality reports.
One interesting APA angle in this story is that a leading source of stability, strength and vision for the USCCR during this recent turmoil was Staff Director Les Jin, one of our community’s leading civil rights lawyers. Knowing from personal experience that Mr. Jin has served competently in a variety of challenging government and community posts, including stints as General Counsel at the U.S. Information Agency and the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, I was dismayed at how he and the civil rights portfolio of the USCCR have been treated by the Bush Administration. Fortunately for our community, Jin will continue to serve the public interest as executive director of the National APA Bar Association (www.napaba.org).
Meanwhile, the latest initiative from Bush appointees to the USCCR is to “recharter” the 50 State Advisory Committees (SACs) so that there will be no more requirements that the SACs include women, minorities, disabled people and others whose rights supposedly are being monitored by the Commission. Formally known as a “Proposed Amendment to the 45 CFR § 703.5(b) Requirement for Minority Representation in the Composition of State Advisory Committees,” this topic is being discussed by Members of Congress, the Board of the USCCR, and others concerned about this issue. As such, we as members of the APA community should be raising our voices to make sure that the spirit of Arthur Fletcher, Les Jin, and other civil rights leaders does not die at the USCCR.
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