Preferential Treatment
Ming S. Singer
Typically refers to selecting or promoting a less ‘‘qualified’’ minority candidate over a more ‘‘qualified’’ non minority applicant. Qualification is defined in terms of job relevant merits. Job relevant merits can include objective performance indices or test scores that have been proven to be valid predictors of job performance. In the academic literature, preferential treatment is alternatively termed preferential selection, preferential hiring, reverse discrimination, or diversity based hiring.
Preferential treatment should be clearly distinguished from the practices of either ‘‘equal opportunity’’ or ‘‘affirmative action’’ in personnel functions. Equal opportunity ensures that all potential candidates are given equal chance and treatment in the competition for limited job vacancies. Equal opportunity is not a race or gender conscious practice and the final allocation decision is based solely on proven job relevant merits. In theory, preferential treatment is then the opposite to equal opportunity, in that not all candidates are treated equally and that certain groups of job candidates are given preferences over the others.
Affirmative action, as defined by Seligman (1973), can take on any of these four meanings: (a) pure or passive non discrimination, (b) pure affirmative action, (c) affirmative action by preferential treatment, or (d) quota hiring. With reference to this definition, preferential treatment involves both (c) and (d). Preferential treatment therefore can be considered as a subset of affirmative action.
The main characteristics of preferential treatment are: (1) it is race or gender conscious; (2) it is redistributive in nature as a means of re sources allocation; (3) it is intended for specified target groups; and (4) it is intended as a temporary measure.
The justifications for and against preferential treatment are well documented in the philosophical literature. The most frequently cited justification is that preferential treatment obeys the compensatory justice principle in providing compensations to minorities for past discriminations they suffered. Other justifications have been put forward by proponents of preferential treatment: the practice helps to equalize life chances so that minorities can compete with non minorities on equal terms; it helps to broaden the talent pool of organizations; it ensures having minority role models in the work force; and it ultimately helps to reduce inequality and to achieve justice in society.
Opponents of preferential treatment argue that proponents of the practice misinterpret the principle of compensatory justice. Compensation for past discrimination should not be re quired of all members of non minority groups, nor should reparation go to all minority group members. Further, opponents argue that preferential treatment itself violates the principle of justice by discriminating against non minority candidates; and that allocation of employment resources should be based on job relevant merits rather than personal characteristics.
Philosophical debate aside, there has been ample empirical research pertaining to the practical consequences of preferential treatment in employment practices. Using utility analysis, researchers have addressed the question of the economic consequences of preferential treatment in employee selection. Findings suggest that, relative to the net gains of hiring based on merits, preferential hiring would result in less gain or a loss in overall workforce efficiency in the economy. However, this effect could be reduced by adopting the ‘‘top down within group’’ method of selection, which appears to result in the least amount of productivity loss and at the same time, significantly increases the minority hiring rate (e.g., Hartigan and Wigdor, 1989).
Social psychological research (e.g., Heilman and Alcott, 2001; Kravitz et al., 1997; Kravitz and Klineberg, 2000) has shown that preferential treatment may have adverse consequences for individual beneficiaries whom the practice intends to benefit (e.g., negative self perception and self evaluation of own abilities or performance). Preferential treatment may also have a negative influence on relations between minority and non minority groups. However, other authors have noted positive social psychological consequences of preferential treatment (e.g., feelings of being more respected by others, or raising minorities’ expectations of being able to ‘‘make it’’).
The perceived fairness of preferential treatment in employment practices has been studied from the perspective of organizational justice theories. This perspective enables researchers to examine the very core of the issue: concern for social justice in any multicultural society. Although people in general perceive the practice as unfair, researchers have delineated various conditions under which preferential treatment may be seen as less unfair or even fair (e.g., framing the practice in different terms, the discrepancy in merits between candidates, or personal experience with unfair employment related treatments) (e.g., Singer, 1993).
In the United States the legal status of preferential treatment is not always clear. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title VII of the Act prohibited the use of either preset hiring quotas or any non job relevant factors as criteria for employment practices. The Supreme Court has ruled, on several occasions, that a numerical hiring or promotion quota is a lawful remedial action aiming at rectifying employers’ past dis criminations against minorities. However, be tween 1964 and 1991, the Supreme Court was not consistent in its interpretations of the Act, and consequently inconsistent in its rulings over alleged cases of preferential treatment in employment practices. These inconsistencies were partly due to, and closely tied to, the then inconclusive and often conflicting findings in psycho metric research on differential validity, test fairness, subgroup differences in job related abilities, and subgroup norming, as well as validity and accuracy in performance predictions.
By the beginning of the 1990s it had become clear that psychometrically sound tests do not discriminate against minority job candidates. The reason for the persistently lower minority hiring rate was found to be due primarily to subgroup ability differences (e.g., Gottfredson, 1994; Gottfredson and Sharf, 1988; Schmidt, Ones, and Hunter, 1992). Consequently, merit based selection that uses valid tests would inevitably result in a lower minority hiring rate. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1991, employment dis crimination is defined in terms of ‘‘disparate hiring outcome’’ rather than ‘‘disparate treatment of individual candidates.’’ The Act also stipulates that subgroup norming based on minority status is unlawful.
The United States Supreme Court, in a recent landmark ruling (June 23, 2003), rejected a rigid university admission system that automatically grants additional points to minority candidates (case no. 02–0516), but nonetheless upheld a preferential treatment policy that gives race a significantly less prominent role in admission decisions (case no. 02–0241). The Court’s ruling thus allows for a ‘‘narrowly tailored use of race’’ in selection decisions in order to increase the potential benefits of student diversification in educational institutions. This ruling of the Supreme Court will without doubt have a far reaching impact on preferential treatment in other hiring practices in government agencies and the wider business world. With this ruling in place, the key question surrounding preferential treatment is likely to shift from one of legality to one of how to reach the goal of social justice expediently so that preferential treatment will no longer be required.
See also affirmative action programs; equal opportunity; multiculturalism; organization ethics; organizational theory, ethical issues in
Bibliography
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Gottfredson, L. S. and Sharf, J. C. (eds.) (1988). Fairness in employment testing. Special issue of Journal of Vocational Behavior, 33 (3).
Hartigan, J. A. and Wigdor, A. K. (1989). Fairness in Employment Testing. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Heilman, M. E. and Alcott, V. B. (2001). What I think of you think of me: Women’s reactions to being viewed as beneficiaries of preferential selection. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 574 82.
Kravitz, D. A. and Klineberg, S. L. (2000). Reactions to
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Kravitz, D. A., Harrison, D. A., Turner, M. E., Levine, E. L., Chaves, W., Brannick, M. T., Denning, D. L., Russell, C. J., and Conard, M. A. (1997). Affirmative Action: A Review of Psychological and Behavioral Re search. Bowling Green, OH: Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
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Seligman, D. (1973). How ‘‘equal opportunity’’ turned into employment quotas. Fortune, March, 160 8.
Singer, M. (1993). Diversity Based Hiring: An Introduction from Legal, Ethical and Psychological Perspectives. London: Avebury.