Affirmative action

The Supreme Court this week struck down the concept of affirmative action otherwise known as quotas. Some say this is much too soon that we still have a long way to go and others say the time has come to recognize the progress that has been made regarding race. The new suggestion is that it should be place not race. This means that if you are born and raised in certain areas you deserve special treatment when it comes to such things as getting into a university. I believe this is the reverse of what used to be called red lining. Back in the 50’s and 60’s mortgage lenders would draw a red line on a map indicating areas where people would not likely qualify for a loan. This practice was discouraged and many people got loans which they could not afford and subsequently lost their homes. If we go to this approach will many people who cannot compete in college get in only to fail? On a personal note, I was managing a plant in Alabama in 1970 and affirmative actions was coming into its own. I received a call from the home office in Minneapolis and was told to check the percentage of blacks in the community and make sure that percentage was represented in the plant. I did that and discovered that we had 16 black employees and needed to hire 11 more. I contacted a friend of my, a black dentist who lived in Huntsville and asked if he would recommend some black families in our area and he sent me a list. I contact those people and as openings occurred we brought in black employees. So far so good. This worked out well because we had a high rate of turnover and openings happened on a regular basis. The question is what would I have done, if we didn’t have a lot of turnover. What would you have done?