When affirmative action is not white: white ethnics’ exclusion in the 1960-1970s USA Текст научной статьи по специальности «Политологические науки»

UDC 323.13 L. Kirillova

WHEN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS NOT WHITE: WHITE ETHNICS' EXCLUSION IN THE 1960-1970s USA

Starting from the 1960s, white ethnic groups of European descent became active proponents of multiculturalism in the United States. Their revival is directly borrowed from the social movements of the 1960s, including Black Power activism and a continuous quest for "authenticity." It also transferred a celebration of ethnicity into the rhetoric of a conservative politics. Despite its activism, on the whole, the ethnic revival faltered because its attempts to conflate the historical experiences of white ethnic groups with racially persecuted groups were ultimately unsustainable. Moreover, white ethnics were internally divided over affirmative action as an ameliorative policy tool. This article aims to explain the internal controversy of the white ethnic movement toward affirmative action: having no unity about this issue, white ethnics both strived to pursue affirmative action and reject it. As a result, they failed to get federal recognition of a designated minority group. Another irony of the white ethnic revival is that, in order to gain access to social benefits, till 1960s, white ethnics wanted to associate themselves with whites; however, beginning in the 1970s, they vigorously reclaimed their ethnic identity stressing their own history of exclusion.

Keywords: Affirmative action, white ethnics, the Civil Rights Movement, whiteness studies, minorities, ethnic identity theories, white ethnic revival, 1960-1970s' USA.

Ethnicity is an essential part of the American experience. Americans envision their homeland as one formed by the merging of numerous nations, a process that continues to expand to this day and involves new immigrant groups from all around the world. Less than a century ago, people believed that ethnic Americans would assimilate into Anglo-Protestant society and would consequently relinquish their ethnicity. This was a time when the idea of the melting pot was the predominant image of the USA. However, since the Second World War, multiculturalism and the celebration of ethnic diversity have increasingly occupied the seat of honor. In particular, during the 1960s and 1970s, a strong emphasis was placed on the "ethnic revival" and "cultural pluralism," phenomena that accentuated increasingly prideful and self-assured positions on the part of ethnic groups and their embodiment in a cultural and social mosaic as a new model of American society. The debate around these concepts was partly fueled by the new wave of largely non-European immigrants in the wake of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, as well by the Civil Rights Movement, which mobilized the country's racial minorities. This article tracks the history of white ethnics' attempts to get included in affirmative action policy and explains the reasons for their failure on the whole. It also presents this issue as an internal controversy of the white ethnic revival: even though it is traditionally believed that white ethnics opposed affirmative action, there are numerous examples that prove otherwise. In contrast to "whiteness" studies that stress ethnic desire to be labeled "white," this research demonstrates the opposite: once seen as entry opportunity track for social and economic stability, ethnic association with whites was later perceived as a hindrance.

Ethnic Identity Theories

In his influential account Ethnic Identity: The Transformation of White America (1990), sociologist Richard D. Alba reviewed four major arguments about ethnic identity. The first theory recognized ethnicity as a distinctive working-and lower-class concept. It was broadly related to the notion that ethnicity was expressed more strongly among socially disadvantaged groups. An underlying premise of this concept was that, predominantly in the working and lower classes, there was a "correspondence of work, residence, and ethnicity" [1. P. 27]. This correspondence was well reflected in the family and community networks that defined the nature of working- and lower-class life and that drew people of a common ethnic background together. In other words, the proponents of this theory, including sociologists Hartmut Esser, William Yancey, William Kornblum, and Carol Stack, suggested that there was a close link between class, ethnic networks, and identity. They implied that ethnic identities were mostly apparent among members of the working and lower classes, and that, in comparison to higher socioeconomic groups, they could not suppress their ethnic identities in the interest of assimilating with people of higher status and different ethnic backgrounds.

The advocates of the second theory emphasized the politicization of ethnicity. Renowned sociologists Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan suggested that ethnicity related to residential and occupational concentrations. This overlapping of American experience triggered a sense of ethnic identity especially in the political sphere. "Social and political institutions do not merely respond to ethnic interests; a great number of institutions exist for the specific purpose of serving ethnic interests" [2. P. 310]. Thus ethnic groups became interest groups that acted on behalf of many similarly situated individuals. Sociologist Daniel Bell added to the argument that politics only recognized group claims, hence increasing the role of ethnicity in the society [3. P. 141]. According to this view, ethnic identity was strongly correlated with political participation and political behavior. Those who identified themselves with a certain ethnicity often had a sense of group interests. The politicization of white ethnics and their increased participation in traditional party politics was examined by historians Beth Bailey and David Farber. Bailey and Farber concluded that when the federal and state governments finally implemented civil rights protections, minority participation in political life significantly increased. Correspondingly, both parties became more responsive to the demands of a diverse electorate [4. P. 56]. Therefore, political involvement among ethnic groups increased along with their representation in local, state, and federal government.

The third theory advanced by sociologist Herbert J. Gans and supported by Richard Alba introduced the emergence of "symbolic ethnicity" that diluted ethnic differences among Americans of European ancestries [5. P. 9-13]. Under the circumstances of increased social mobility and intermarriage, ethnicity became secondary to many Americans of recent ethnic background. However, they did not renounce their ethnic identity completely; conversely, they adapted it to their current life, "selecting from an ethnic heritage a few symbolic elements that [did] not interfere with the need to intermix socially," transforming ethnicity into some sort of occasional pastime [1. P. 29]. Symbolic ethnicity allowed individuals to construct their own identities that contained both ethnic and mainstream elements. Therefore, it became a certain characteristic of people with European origins in integrated settings. Symbolic ethnicity also expected a disconnection of ethnic identity from ethnic organizations, communities, and networks; hence it directly opposed the previous concepts of solidarity and ethnicity as a class-linked style. According to this theory, the emergence of "European Americans" as a new ethnic group was the logical outcome of assimilation in American society that remained predominantly multiethnic and multicultural. White ethnics - in contrast to racial minorities - had a more voluntary relationship to their own ethnic identity.

The supporters of the final theory of ethnicity stressed the revival of ethnic identity, the argument that originated in Marcus Hansen's thesis [6. P. 360]. According to Hansen, the second generation of immigrants was often preoccupied with the problems of adjusting to American society and as a result self-consciously denied its ethnic origins, but the third generation, confident about its position in society, attempted to reconstruct them. The ethnic revival was particularly connected to a return to ethnic cultures, especially renewed interest in ethnic languages, music, and literature, as well as increasing enthusiasm about ethnic celebrations and festivals. The notion of a "return" to ethnic heritage also implied that socioeconomic position might be positively related to ethnic identity: the higher the level of education and social status the individual had, the more chances of increased ethnic self-identification he or she might experience. Evidently, this argument contrasts with the first theory of the role of social mobility as an agent of assimilation.

The White Ethnic Revival

In order to explain the white ethnic revival in the 1970s, it is necessary to look at diverse factors that triggered activism. One key reason was the Black Nationalism that served as a model for action for ethnic minorities. The group-based movement expanded the options for numerous ethnic groups and provided the foundation for their radicalization. According to Bailey and Farber, the rising Black Power movement symbolized a growing belief that "affirming and organizing along the lines of racial identities was a sine qua non for political, social, cultural, or economic advancement" [4. P. 55]. Black Power was accompanied by group affirmation of political, cultural, and personal identity that displayed similar feelings and an increasing emphasis on their particularity within a cultural, social, and political context. Thus, this nationalist movement was appealing to other ethnic minorities who felt a lack of power within American society. With the substitution of the term "ethnicity" for "race," white ethnics of European background modeled their movement on Black Power (for instance, the Radical Zionist Alliance and Ukrainian Power), disassociating themselves from white privilege [7. P 126]. European ethnics intentionally employed a language of ethnic specificity, of not-quite-whiteness, to emphasize their neutrality in black-white conflicts and non-participation in national crimes against African Americans [8. P. 22].

Keeping in mind the black fight for civil rights and their history of exclusion, some scholars consider discrimination of white ethnics in the past as another impetus for their mobilization. Realizing the sudden focus of the public on black grievance, European ethnics also decided to raise the topic of the harsh circumstances that they had to endure and overcame in the past. Thus, Bailey and Farber pointed out ethnics' emphasis on their histories of exclusion from "mainstream" American society. By the same token, sociologist John Skrentny recognized eastern and southern European Americans as economically disadvantaged minorities who experienced discrimination [4. P. 64; 9. P. 264]. Similarly, in his controversial book The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics (1975), an American Catholic philosopher Michael Novak stressed the century of discrimination of European ethnics by white Anglo-Saxon hegemony in economic, political, and social life. In this manifesto of the European ethnic-consciousness mobilization, Novak explained how "unworthiness was stamped upon the ethnics" and how that feeling facilitated their future assertion of dignity and self-esteem [10. P. 85]. Similar to African Americans, Novak categorized white ethnics as victims of WASP [White Anglo-Saxon Protestant] hatred and cultural and racial animosity. He reinforced the fact that "the children of Central European immigrants... were 'network people' through whom flowed primary attachments to family, instincts, memory, and roots" [7. P. 126]. Three years later Novak published The Guns of Lattimer (1978), the story of his Slavic people (Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians) who immigrated to the Pennsylvania coal fields and found themselves dipped into racism, economic exploitation, and bloodshed. Following the same idea of white ethnics' victimization, the author stressed race consciousness of white society and uncovered the forgotten history of bloodlines and memory [7. P. 126].

Historian Matthew Jacobson went further in developing the concept of the white ethnic revival and concluded that millions of people became absorbed in their ethnic origins because they gained significant impetus for mobilization due to the surrounding cultural, political, and institutional forces. In particular, television networks and trade press produced and widely publicized people's relation to their ethnic origins through A. Haley's Roots and "turned the roots phenomenon into a roots craze by providing instruction in genealogical research" [8. P. 4]. Through publishing and television, these cultural industries attempted to emphasize the ethnic peculiarity of individuals. Teachers, scholars, and publishers across the country began to focus on ethnicity as a true American experience and got involved in a series of "institution-building movements" in the name of ethnic minorities, producing Ethnic Studies and such courses as World of Our Fathers and Roots. Immigration history emerged in the universities' curricula as a subfield, reconstructing traditional national narrative and accentuating distinct "ethnic" histories and necessity to learn about ancestral heritage. These major historiographical shifts in the field of academia toward a pluralist outlook toward the nation took place in the late 1950s and generated even stronger in the 1960s and 1970s. In the same way, politicians Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter popularized the notions of "Americanness" by hallowing ethnic origins as an explicit characteristic of the nation. Thus ethnicity became not only the central concept for individuals and families but for the whole country in general.

Jacobson assessed yet another important characteristic of the white ethnic revival that was the appreciation of social history. From now on, history of everyday life became a crucial part of national history. There were dramatic revisions of the US history textbooks and inclusion of Ethnic Studies programs in universities curricula. Essentially significant was the fact that each person's history was on the pedestal and treated with respect. People became the eyewitnesses of massive, state-sponsored projects of restoring and commemorating Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, the iconic place of millions of immigrants who arrived a couple of centuries ago. The cultural preservation of historical landmark spots evolved into traditional ethnic celebrations and festivals - cultural events that bring the whole family together. Being ethnically connected to each other had turned into significant part of European ethnics' lives. Celebrating the "immigrant heritage" and reconstructing an immigrant past allowed white Americans to reinvent "America," the nation which their ancestor had moved to many decades ago. From now on, physical spaces related to family genealogy or local history, small through it was, had become meaningful historical sites. Poor villages and ghettoes which previously had been unnoticed or privately looked back with contempt or shame, in the new context of American society, had finally revived as important places of family history and background [8. P. 19, 50, 68]. The white American public was nostalgic about its immigrant past, therefore the appeals to the romantic icon of yesterday's settlers became so attractive and crucial to implement in present time.

Another vital cause of the ethnic revival was the nationalist fervor of numerous ethnic groups in the country. In Roots Too, Jacobson provided examples of how contemporary events in Europe provoked emotional involvement amid white ethnics in the United States. In particular, the ethno-nationalist conflict in

Northern Ireland, the presence of Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe, the "Prague Spring" of 1968, the Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, and the workers' movement in Poland in 1981 - all captured attention and sympathy from ethnic compatriots in the New World. Nationalist movements in Europe ignited the sense of ethnic identity among the groups of European descent in the US. Even though Americans did not have any intentions of returning to their homeland, culturally and emotionally they were still linked to their ancestors and the events that were taking place in their fatherland [8. P. 26].

Demonstrations and protests in support of their distant relatives were very common among white ethnics in the US. Such activism was especially widespread amid ethnic organizations that were emerging in big cities in a high gear. Some of the established ethnic organizations of the 1960s and 1970s included purely cultural agendas aimed at restoring and preserving the ethnic past. They also included conservative political groups, as well as New Left groups. Some of the organizations were established within nonethnic institutions (most times in universities). At that period one could see the rise of ethnic antidefamation groups and groups devoted to particular events and social life. Finally, there were organizations affiliated with a renewed dedication to the homeland. Similar to other minorities in the country, white ethnics formed organizations, lobbied, and even engaged in some protest. They often conducted white ethnic conferences and consultations on ethnicity, forums, workshops, and special centers where they could discuss their business.

An additional stimulus to ethnic revival was a current of antimodernism. This was the perception that ethnicity represented a sanctuary of genuineness that was an alternative to the "bloodless, homogenizing forces of mass production and consumption, mass media, commodification, bureaucratization, and suburbanization" [8. P. 23]. Among the world of standardized technologies, food, and literature, ethnic pluralism was like a breath of fresh air. This quest for "authenticity," which came out of 1960s, was a way out of modern, mechanized, mass-oriented lifestyle. Novak believed that re-urbanization should be a solution to continuous cities' poverty, compression, crime, and pollution that surround ethnic minorities who largely live in urban areas. Moreover, he defined the machines as the cause for people's low morale and performance. In order to break this corrupt system, Novak dreamed of "the inevitable coalition" based on self-interest and the solidarity between people of all colors [8. P. 293]. Embracing individual's ethnicity, sharing the experience with people of different ethnic and racial groups, as well as transferring positive energy to the family and the community were some of the "survival" tips in the age of modernism from the scholar. Preservation of ethnic memory was another area of Novak's preoccupation; though similar guidelines could be applied in this case as well - namely, listening to instincts and feelings; valuing and recording the stories of individuals of same ethnicity; respecting common patterns in character and behavior, and being equal to expectations of the people of same ancestry.

Starting from the 1960s, multiculturalism also triggered the emergence of new ethnic merchandise and marketing practices. Jacobson elaborated on this topic in details in Roots Too, where he acknowledged the presence of tourism industry that promoted "discover your homeland" touring packages. In other words, American citizens could buy a travel package to Europe and explore their origins by actually visiting their homeland. Furthermore, numerous merchandise companies sold ethnic accessories, flags and other apparel with ethnic or national symbols. Undoubtedly, this promoted more vigorous self-identification among white ethnics who had more and more opportunities to learn about their ethnic background.

Another crucial part of the ethnic revival was related to "returns" of famous people to the birthplace of their ancestors. The more influential the person was, the more effect he or she would have on the people with diverse ethnic backgrounds. Jacobson presented the example of John F. Kennedy's "return" to Ireland in the summer of 1963, to the fields of County Wexford, where his great-grandfather had been raised [8. P. 11]. That trip had a massive impact on the white ethnic mobilization in the US. Newspapers were filled with articles about Kennedy's visit of his ancestors' home and defining the United States as a nation of immigrants. Jacob-son emphasized Kennedy's public language of "enduring links" between Americans and their many homelands, the moment when ethnic pluralism became embodied in American life [8. P. 15]. Starting from Kennedy, the talked about "returns" to the roots became a pervasive rhetoric in American culture. Seven years later, Richard Nixon took his "roots" trip to Ireland, and fourteen years after that, Ronald Reagan visited the modest Church of the Assumption in Ballyporeen, County Tipperary, where his great-grandfather had been baptized. All presidential "returns" had been widely covered in news increasing public's desire to learn more about their own heritage as well. Hence presidential "journeys home" accompanied with Madonna's Ciao Italia (1988), Michael Kalafatas's The Bellstone (2003), Michael Dukakis's "odyssey of discovery" in Greece made a serious conclusion that ethnicity "ramified outward through the larger units of social organization, from the individual,

to the family, to the ethnic group, to the nation" [8. P. 48]. Thereby starting from the 1960s, embodiment and appraisal of ethnic backgrounds became a natural constituent of national belonging. Ethnic hyphenation, which in the early 20th century displayed adopted Americanism and the possibility of being scrutinized, became a common, if not expected, aspect of person's identity in the mid-century and later on.

Finally, scholars like Matthew Jacobson emphasized interconnections between the ethnic revival and other movements in the 1960s and 1970s. In particular, they stated that the white ethnic mobilization intersects with the history of the American conservative right. First of all, white ethnic groups' votes had significantly contributed to the overall conservative electoral majority that allowed the Republican President to win five out of eight elections from 1968 to 1996. Secondly, Jacobson noted the presence of white ethnics within the New Right coalition (chiefly neoconservatives M. Novak, I. Kristol, N. Podhoretz, and G. Himmelfarb), who brought to conservatism an ethnic memory of the ghetto. Lastly, the ethnic revival resembled conservatism in a way that it also symbolically associated itself with improvement of poverty levels, the importance of the family and the community, and obstinacy to the policies of affirmative action and welfare [8. P. 182]. White ethnic activism found its place among conservatism largely because both of them found common ground on the issues of moral and religious ideas aligned between Catholics and Protestants on family values, abortion, and gay rights, as well as ideas about the work, social mobility, meritocracy, and opportunity. Jacobson developed the topic of interrelationship between social movements in the 1960s and 1970s and the white ethnic revival even further, when looking at the rhetoric of ethnic mobilization, the language, symbols, and its logic and finding connections with the New Left, second-wave feminism, and both pro- and anti-immigration coalitions.

White Ethnics' Exclusion from Affirmative Action Programs

Even though affirmative action was a byproduct of the Civil Rights Movement, it immediately expanded beyond African Americans. Initially, it encompassed such ethnoracial minorities as Latinos, Asian Americans, and American Indians. Later on, it also spread to women and the disabled. However, the affirmative action policy did not include white ethnic groups that predominantly consisted of people with ancestry from eastern or southern Europe (Italians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, etc.). According to John D. Skrentny, "white ethnics are generally Americans of those nationalities that were disfavored but not excluded by American immigration policy between the early 1920s and 1965" [9. P. 275]. These groups also had strong advocates but never became the recognized minorities for special aid programs.

Starting in the mid-1960s, after the rise of the black freedom movement and the federal designation of official minority groups, many ethnic leaders began to emphasize their own experiences of historical discrimination and the need to enhance their status. Joan Alberti, educational consultant in Washington D.C., once said that "blacks particularly helped white ethnics understand the whole idea of belonging and belonging to a particular group, community" [11. P. 14]. The growing number of white ethnic organizations hoped to reinforce their sense of difference. At the same time, they aimed to present themselves as similar to African Americans in terms of their economic and social benefit needs. This logic extended to affirmative action programs.

In the United States, anti-discrimination law conforms to two legal models - "disparate impact" and "disparate treatment." Disparate impact theory focuses on discriminatory consequences: the case of discrimination exists if there is an adverse impact on a protected group. Disparate treatment theory, on the contrary, focuses on discriminatory intent: there is discrimination if an employer's actions were driven by an individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Based on these models, white ethnic advocates collected evidence on their underrepresentation and tried to lobby their interests on the federal level.

These activists frequently blamed the government, the media, and corporations for their economic disadvantages. In 1967, the Director of the American Jewish Committee Irving M. Levine launched the National Project on Ethnic America (NPEA). He sought to make whites "conscious of their own realities" and make them aware of their own oppression and victimhood [12. P. 216]. In the late 1960s, NPEA sponsored a series of conferences on "the problems of white ethnic America" and "consultations on ethnicity" that appealed to ethnic community organizers, academics, unionists, and religious activists [13. P. 181]. Similarly, the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, founded in 1969, presented the complaints of blue-collar Americans stating that "these 'middle Americans' earning their 'moderate income' are often the victims of stereotype -the hardhats, the silent majority, racists" [13. P. 217]. Because of a lack of grants, Euro-ethnics had to fund themselves in order to conduct any ethnic group research. As future U.S. senator Barbara Mikulski noted, "The Ethnic American is forgotten and forlorn... We are 'near poor' economically. No one listens to our

problems" [14. P. 91]. To resolve these issues, the head of Newark's Cultural and Education Center Stephen Adubato developed a network of alliances with the city's minority communities. He pushed for enforcement of antidiscrimination laws and emphasized the need to address the ignorance of federal policy-makers when it came to the preservation of white ethnic urban residential neighborhoods [15]. A prominent Catholic cleric and activist Monsignor Geno Baroni also strived to achieve public recognition of white ethnicity. With the help of the Ford Foundation, he established the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs at the Catholic University of America. Similar to the NPEA, this Center held conferences with academics, religious officials, unionists, and local ethnic leaders [13. P. 182].

As Melvin H. King, the former director of the Boston Urban League, stated, "One of the things we all understand is that if the power structure closes opportunity for some, they develop mechanisms for closing it to others." From a random survey of the board membership of New York banks and various universities, Mr. King decided that the "power structure is pretty WASP. They could easily appoint folks from other ethnic groups," he said, meaning Italians, Poles, and Jews as well as blacks [16]. When discussing WASPs as the white elite that exercised disproportionate power in American history, one considers the Americans of English, Scottish, Protestant-Irish, and Dutch origin, whose ancestors arrived to this land in the 17th and 18th centuries. "Their forebears fought the American Revolution and wrote the Constitution, embedding in it a distinctive set of beliefs of Protestant origin, including inalienable rights and the separation of church and state" [17]. WASP dominance was expressed most clearly in Anglo-conformity that implied the idea of immigrants' assimilation into Anglo-Saxon society with adaptation of its social norms and English-speaking culture. Catholic immigrants both from Southern Europe and Ireland faced a century of systematized discrimination from WASPs and were repeatedly denounced as mindless followers of the Pope unsuited to democratic participation [18]. Not to mention their responsibility for slavery and racial discrimination in the United States, white Protestants also practiced anti-Semitism and even tried to impose formal quotas to limit Jews' access to higher ranks in American society. Traditionally, WASPs composed the majority of the academic, military, and business elites. For these reasons in the 1970s, white ethnics often used their past experience as an argument to emphasize their victimhood and, thus, the necessity to improve their status through federal assistance.

In December 1971, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare officials offered white ethnics some affirmative action consideration. The unclear and vague policy language acknowledged that white ethnics suffered discrimination. They concluded that "experience of various religious groups, primarily Jews and Catholics, and members of certain ethnic groups, primarily of Eastern, Middle and Southern European Ancestry... continue to be excluded from executive, middle-management, and other job levels, because of discrimination based on their religion and/or national origin." Under this directive, employers were required to undertake various activities to "remedy this underutilization of that particular religious or ethnic minority group" [14. P. 92]. In April of 1979, the National Federation of American Ethnic Groups adopted a resolution that ethnic groups be included as an official minority entitled to affirmative action [19. P. 1786]. However, all these attempts failed.

In 1984, the Democratic Party's Council on Ethnic Americans held hearings across the country in cities with large ethnic populations, calling for an end to discrimination and ethnic stereotyping. Politician William O. Lipinski emphasized that "Ethnic Americans feel a sense of bitterness when they are denied job opportunities or promotions because of government enforced affirmative action programs" [20]. In order to solve the issue, he proposed an amendment to the legislation which would redefine the term "National Origin" and include "individuals of all ethnic backgrounds that have historically suffered discrimination such as those with Italian, Polish, German, Irish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Yugoslavian, Czechoslovakian or other ethnic backgrounds" [20].

Even though it is commonly believed that white ethnics opposed affirmative action, many of them demanded inclusion in affirmative action programs. In particular, representatives of Polish groups sought inclusion under a category of "Polonians" in the EEO-1, a form used by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to count minorities in a firm's workforce, but were denied the request. Early in the 1950s, the EEOC was preceded by President Eisenhower's Committee on Government Contracts (PCGC) which remained in existence until the termination of his administration in 1961. Established by Executive Order 10479 in 1953, the PCGC became the first agency of Government to have "over-all responsibility for carrying out a nondiscrimination policy in employment under Government contracts" [21. P. 5]. Between 1941 and 1953, there were Executive Orders that related to nondiscrimination. However, there was no Presidential order for action to bring about compliance with the nondiscrimination clause in contracts prior to the

establishment of the PCGC. Significantly, this Committee included white ethnics and religious minorities. From 1953 to 1958, the PCGC received 217 complaints based on religion and 29 complains based on the national origin from a total number of 717 [21. P. 23]. Moreover, numerous cooperating agencies that represented these groups worked with the PCGC, including American Friends Service Committee, American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, Bureau of Jewish Employment Problems, Catholic Interracial Council, Jewish Labor Committee, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews [21. P. 35]. Considering these facts, why were the categories of religion and white ethnics as a separate group dropped after 1964 and only a smaller set of groups included in the successive EEOC? More research on this issue is required to understand the controversy of affirmative action and its relation to religious categories.

When Polish Americans were denied the request of their inclusion in the EEO-1 form, the Polish American Congress (PAC) made numerous attempts to prove white ethnics' discrimination. Thus, in 1969, 1972, and 1977, the PAC analyzed the ethnic breakdown in state government departments in Illinois and in the largest corporations of the state and found underrepresentation of the Polish American population [9. P. 285-286]. According to Mitchell P. Kobelinski, the president of the Illinois chapter of the PAC, "These companies just are unwilling to blemish their stationary with a strange-sounding name... We think everyone should learn to pronounce American names. Wojciechowski is a fine American name." He later noted that Polish Americans "want to be included because we feel we have so much to offer. These big national corporations suffered a management drought because they were no longer drawing from the total available pool of talent" [16].

Under the leadership of white ethnic movement activist and PAC executive director Leonard Walentynowicz, the PAC persuaded the Office of Management and Budget "to issue circular no. 846 on May 12, 1977, authorizing the government to collect data on the federal government's hiring of 16 European ethnic groups" [19. P. 1786]. Walentynowicz also pushed the Civil Service Commission to consider white ethnics in their efforts to pursue affirmative action. In February 1978, he wrote to EEOC commissioner Eleanor Holmes Norton and cited a memorandum from President Jimmy Carter with the request for governmental departments and agencies to follow the ethnic-data directive. He later called for the EEOC to collect similar data to enable discrimination complaints by ethnics [19. P. 1786]. In his statement on the Civil Rights Commission Authorization Act of 1978, he pointed out that

"For reasons not entirely clear, national origin groups such as Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Arabian-Americans, et cetera, are never separately considered even though numerically and otherwise they are distinct, and significant groups. Instead they are continually included in designations used by the Commission as 'nonminority,' 'white' or 'other,' having the further effect as being part of the 'net' group that end up being disfavored by the Commission."

Walentynnowicz concluded that, because they were treated this way, these groups ended up bearing the burden of the Commission's criticism for the discrimination of designated minorities, simultaneously suffering discrimination themselves [22. P. 202]. In 1981, he pressed the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to include Polish Americans in affirmative action programs. Similarly, Roman Pucinski, a Polish American Democrat from Chicago, complained of the EEOC's failure to count white ethnics as designated minorities and stressed the need to revise the affirmative action policy to include them [13. P. 184]. In 1980, PAC president Aloysius Mazewski told President Jimmy Carter about his disappointment that none of the seventy-nine minority judicial nominees in the country had Polish surnames [14. P. 93].

Lydio Tomasi, the Director of the Center for Migration Studies of New York, brought several related cases of discrimination based on the Slavic descent. For instance, a Yale graduate Dr. John Nielsen could not find employment until he changed his Slovene name Sesek into Nielsen. Professor Joseph Velikonja of the University of Washington was not successful in obtaining the position in the Board of Education because he was a Slovene immigrant [23. P. 494]. Thus representatives of Americans of Slavic descent also contributed to the white ethnic movement. The President of the Masaryk Chapter (Detroit) of the Czechoslovak National Council of America (CNCA) Jan Sklenar called attention to the fact that there were no Slavic members on either the Commission or its staff. This could contribute to the depressing record of the Commission in dealing with cases of discrimination based on national origin. Later Sklenar presented the example of how Slavic organizations tried to present the case of underrepresentation to the Detroit Board of Education. Specifically, the Michigan Division of the PAC, the Metropolitan Detroit Ukrainian Congress Committee, and the Detroit Masaryk Chapter of the CNCA jointly stressed that there were no educators of Slavic descent in any key po-

sitions in Detroit, even though the Slavic community constituted about 30% of the city's population. At the conclusion of his speech, he said that the CNCA had submitted a proposal to create a Slavic American Committee for Civil Rights and a Slavic American Political Action Committee [24. P. 208-210]. Despite these efforts, Americans of Slavic descent did not succeed in pursuing federal benefits or even a recognition of their discrimination and underrepresentation by the Civil Rights Commission.

It is traditionally believed that Jewish groups lobbied the federal government against all affirmative action. It is partly true, as many Jews complained about reverse discrimination and the lack of merit principle in university admissions. This attitude emerged after a long history of quotas being used against Jews both in the United States and abroad. As the head of the New Jersey Office for the Anti-Defamation League Harold Adler noted, "The whole concept of quotas is anathema to Jews" [25]. Rabbi Swift also pointed that "quotas conjure ugly memories for Jews... In Europe before World War II, Jews were restricted in universities and the professions to their percentage of the population" [25]. At the same time, some Jews argued for their inclusion in the affirmative action category. In 1968, Emanuel Muravchik, executive director of the Jewish Labor Committee, argued that Jews should be included in EEO-1 form because statistical data was needed to prove their discrimination [9. P. 283]. Alfred W. Blumrosen, a founding organizer of the EEOC and its first Chief of Conciliations, stated that in collecting demographic data from employers, "the EEOC had to face the traditional objections of civil rights organizations to the recording of racial identity" [26. P. 330]. According to him, these interest groups feared that information from EEO-1 forms could be used to facilitate discrimination. In fact, it was taboo for agencies to ask a person's race or ethnicity through 1968. Howard W. Rogerson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights defined the following procedures for the collection of minority group data:

"In setting up procedures we do not want the following to occur:

a. The placing of a question on race or national origin on any application;

b. Asking an applicant to state his race or national origin;

c. Marking racial or ethnic identification on any form or record in the presence of an applicant" [27].

In other words, agencies could not ask for racial data as it could result in "possible embarrassment," however, it was still necessary to collect it. As it comes from Rogerson's memorandum, "a little imagination and common sense" should be enough to resolve this issue [27]. Visual identification was one way to determine to which group the individual belonged, and whether it could be eligible for minority status designation - a practice of racial profiling pioneered by the Small Business Administration.

In 1972, at the meeting of the National Jewish Community Advisory Council, Rabbi Samson Weiss proposed that Jews be declared a minority, so they could get in on preferential hiring [14. P. 93]. Samuel Freed-man, the director of the National Business and Industry Committee of the American Jewish Committee noted that, in 1970, a program of affirmative action had been worked out with several airlines that had no Jews in middle and top management except in legal or industrial slots. This program aimed to address the absence of Jewish employers in middle management and to redirect the company's executive trainee hiring [16]. Despite these commentaries, a majority of Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress, were vocal opponents of the "hard" affirmative action of goals and quotas, preferential hiring, and identity-based affirmative claims. On the other hand, they supported the "soft" affirmative action that implies broad enhanced recruitment of minorities, compensatory education, targeted outreach and training, and improved financial assistance for underrepresented groups [16; 28. P. 323]. Decisions in "hard" affirmative action are mainly conducted based on preferential treatment to disadvantaged group members, when "soft" affirmative action is centered on individual merit. In other words, the distinction between "hard" and "soft" affirmative action comes from the fact that "hard" programs involve an ideological shift to a group-based concept, while "soft" programs explicitly support the principles of individually based equity [29. P. 111].

Italian Americans similarly hoped for their inclusion in the federal category of the policy. In April of 1967, Vincent Trapani, state president of the New York Federation of Italian-American Democratic Organizations, argued that white ethnic groups, including Italian Americans, suffered discrimination in the past. Therefore, exclusion of national origin categories from the EEO-1 form violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [9. P. 282]. A few Italian Americans filed affirmative action lawsuits. Thus, Albert Maise, who was rejected when he applied to the University of Colorado Law School, argued in court that, as an Italian American, he should have been given the same consideration as other federally recognized minority applicants. The same law school faced a similar claim from Philip DiLeo, who asked that his application be included with other

minority applicants in the "Special Academic Assistance Program." DiLeo thought this was appropriate because he was "of Italian-American heritage and a product of slum schools, [and] was educationally, socially, and economically disadvantaged" [14. P. 93]. Even though the court ruled against both Maise and DiLeo, the chairman of the Italian American Foundation insisted on compensatory preferences for white ethnics.

The William Paca Society of Buffalo (named after a signer of the Declaration of Independence who was of Italian descent) surveyed the city's social clubs and bank management and found them noticeably lacking in Italian Americans. "Our group is a respected group of judges, bankers and lawyers," said the society's former chairman Joseph Mattina. "We organized because we didn't wasn't undesirables in our ethnic category taking advantage of the swelling pride and frustration of Italian Americans in Buffalo." Paca Society members met informally with business leaders and conveyed Mattina's message: "give us a chance, us who are qualified, give us a chance to prove it" [16]. At a conference at Queens College on "The Urban Experience of Italian-Americans" in 1975, Dr. Joseph M. Conforti, a sociology professor at SUNY Old West-bury, suggested that one of the ways to empower Italian Americans would be to include them in federal affirmative action programs that would give them political influence and social mobility [30]. Two years later, Jeno F. Paulucci, national chairman of the Italian American Foundation, stated that Italian Americans were generally more in favor of affirmative action than blacks, especially in the area of higher education: "The fact is that Americans of Eastern and Southern European stock - Italians, Poles, Slavs, Lithuanians, Hungarians and others - are about as underrepresented in higher education as are blacks" [31]. He indicated that the goal of affirmative action was to benefit all segments of American society that were in need, not just nonwhites. In 1978, another New York Times article emphasized the commentary of Andrew Greeley, an Irish American Catholic priest and sociologist, who called Eastern and Southern European ethnic groups "victims of prejudice in the past" and mentioned their underrepresentation in positions of responsibility [32].

The Conference on "Civil Rights Issues of Euro-Ethnic Americans in the United States"

One of the greatest achievements by white ethnics was a conference on "Civil Rights Issues of Euro-Ethnic Americans in the United States: Opportunities and Challenges" sponsored by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Thanks to the efforts of Representatives Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and William Edwards (DCA), and Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), comprehensive hearings on the problems of white ethnics was held in 1979. These legislators also promoted the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 of Section 104(G), known as Senate 721, which directed the Commission to "appraise the laws and policies of the Federal Government with respect to denials of equal protection of the laws under the Constitution involving Americans who are members of eastern- and southern-European ethnic groups and to report its findings to the Congress" [33]. After the enactment of Senate 721 in 1979, the Civil Rights Commission agreed to sponsor the conference on "Civil Rights Issues of Euro-Ethnic Americans in the United States" in Chicago to discuss the status of white ethnics and their concerns about housing, education, social services, employment, media representation, inter-governmental relations, and the position of ethnic women in American society. White ethnic representatives, who participated in the conference, expressed their hopes that the consultation was "just the beginning of a nationwide effort to ensure that [their] nation's commitment to civil and human rights is fairly and evenly applied and is not distorted by claims of priority and lack of resources" [34. P. 380-381]. In other words, they hoped that the conference would ensure future support for white ethnic groups.

Irving M. Levine, Director of the Institute on Pluralism and Group Identity, indicated that despite their middle class status and their association with WASPs, white ethnics still suffered severe discrimination when it came to their status in the society. According to him, white ethnics were "excluded not only from clubs; they're excluded from corporate suites, and ... this is leading to unequal treatment ... that will create ethnic rage" [35. P. 11] He stated that, unless there was some help from official bodies to monitor sections and patterns of exclusiveness and exclusion in the society, the situation would not change.

Washington D.C. educational consultant Joan Alberti similarly underlined the point that there was "a need to remove both hidden and apparent economic, social, and political barriers which prevent white ethnics from achieving success" [11. P. 19] Having worked closely on the Conference on the Educational and Occupational Needs of White Ethnic Women in 1978, she had specifically addressed the problem of low employment among white ethnic women because of their limited formal training and experience. Proposing specific solutions, Alberti emphasized the necessity of establishing a number of nontraditional works in which white ethnic women could apply their homemaking and community skills. She also stressed the urgency of the government to recognize white ethnics as a special-needs group "so that they could qualify for special types

of financial assistance available now only for the poor and not for the working poor" [11. P. 20]. Since white ethnics are generally above the established poverty level, the financial assistance which is readily available to the poor is rarely available to them. Alberti further stated that "what usually keeps these families above the poverty line is the second income of the wife and often additional assistance from the children of working age" [36. P. 33]. Having analyzed government programs and legislation, Alberti came to the conclusion that most of them tended to exclude the needs of white ethnics. In particular, she cited the example of the Vocational Education Act of 1963 that did not recognize white ethnics as a special-needs population. "Particular areas of emphasis are designed to focus only on: the handicapped, the disadvantaged (economically and academically), those who are limited in speaking English, the bilingual population, as well as issues relating to sex equality and sex stereotyping. The only racial type recognized is the native American" [36. P. 34]. The Ethnic Heritage Studies Act within the U.S. Office of Education was the only program that, according to Alberti, addressed the interests of white ethnics. During the fiscal year 1979-80 this program, which was funded for 2.3 million dollars, awarded 48 multi- and mono-ethnic grants of no more than 60,000 dollars each [36. P. 34]. These grants mostly focused on training and curriculum materials development. Since the Ethnic Heritage Studies Act was designed to meet the demands of various groups, not only white ethnics, Euro-ethnics felt dissatisfied. According to them, the level of federal efforts to improve their conditions was minimal in comparison to other racial and ethnic minorities.

John Kromkowski, President of the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, was also very concerned about the small business, economic development, and the community organization as the "developer of wholesome entrepreneurial activities" of white ethnics [37. P. 81]. He was preoccupied with the federal agencies and departments, such as the Department of Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Health, Education, and Welfare, and special agencies like the Small Business Administration, Community Services Administration, ACTION, and Minority Business Enterprise. According to Kromkowski, they "must be prompted by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission" to develop policies, strategies, and programs for the urban revitalization of white ethnic neighborhoods [37. P. 82].

The question of historical discrimination against white ethnics was an important issue of the conference as well. Irving Levine stated that

"There has never been the kind of systematic discrimination against white ethnics as there has been against blacks. The confusion, I must say, is when we begin to deal with Hispanics and Aleutian Islanders and Guamanians and Samoans and everything else. You are beginning then to deal with ethnic categories that have only recently been developed as special categories of discrimination. Those categories. may in fact turn out to have been equal in discrimination to say early Italian, anti-Italian discrimination" [38. P. 111].

In other words, Levine suggests that white ethnics suffered the same level of discrimination as the groups that were officially included in affirmative action categories. However, despite the same level of suffering, the government bureaucrats seemed to apply a different "people of color" test to prove that white ethnic groups did not qualify under the proper parameters to be included in the federal affirmative action policy. Later in his speech Levine pointed out that according to a study of the National Urban League, white ethnics were on the same social and economic level as African Americans and Latinos. Despite that, he still pointed to the remaining bigotry, discrimination, and prejudice in the society toward white ethnics that undermined their rights of full citizenship [38. P. 111]. Similarly, Leonard Walentynowicz claimed that people of Polish and other Euro-ethnic background and tradition knew the suffering and "other devastating effects that discrimination, defamation, and denial of other civil and human rights" caused [34. P. 380]. In particular, he stated that much of this discrimination had occurred within the context of one race, while the Civil Rights Commission and the EEOC were mostly focused on discrimination between races, sexes, and people of different color. This, in turn, created more neglect and alienation from the Government that, according to Walentynowicz, was only acting to "overcome and remedy discrimination based on race, color and sex" [34. P. 380]. This statement presents an irony of white ethnic rhetoric: while claiming that Euro-ethnics had little relation to WASPs, Walentyniwicz stated that discrimination of Italian Americans or other white ethnics took place within one, presumably white, race. On the one hand, white ethnics tried to disconnect themselves from white America, embrace their ethnic differences, and simultaneously stress their historical experiences of discrimination and prejudice from WASPs. On the other hand, they emphasized their whiteness and used it as an element of victimhood when it came to comparing themselves with other racial and ethnic minorities.

Stressing the topic of employment and white ethnicity, the Vice Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Daniel Leach brought up the problem of barriers to minority hiring. Such barriers appeared mainly in areas of testing and screening devices, as well as in recruitment. Emphasizing the disparate impact of tests, he concluded that candidates often experienced unreasonably high rates of rejection by failing to attain minimum standards for qualification. "This may be a valid and acceptable practice, but too often we've found that employers have been using tests that have not been shown to be predictors of job performance" [39. P. 375]. Leach indicated that in many cases those practices served as a means to "filter or screen out certain 'types' of people for jobs or for promotions" [39. P. 375]. He indicated three forms of job discrimination on the basis of ethnicity: discrimination in hiring, discrimination in the form of segregated or unequal job assignments, and discrimination in job advancement [39. P. 375].

In the Minority Report (1978), professor of social services Russell Barta conducted a study where he tracked the compliance of Chicago's largest corporations with U.S. Department of Labor guidelines. These new guidelines that were established in 1973 were based on the fact that:

"Members of various religious and ethnic groups, primarily but not exclusively of Eastern, Middle, and Southern European ancestry, such as Jews, Catholics, Italians, Greeks, and Slavic groups continue to be excluded from executive middle management, and other job levels because of discrimination based upon their religion and/or national origin. These guidelines are intended to remedy such unfair treatment" [40. P. 419].

Barta investigated the success of these white ethnic groups in Chicago-based companies. This was done by verifying how many Euro-ethnics, Latinos, and African Americans either served on the board of directors or occupied the highest executive positions in Chicago's largest corporations. Having analyzed the findings, Barta concluded that less than 3 % of the 1341 directors and less than 4 % of the 1355 officers were Polish, Italian, Latin, or Black. This was a gross underrepresentation, considering that these four groups constituted 34 % of the metropolitan area's population [40. P. 422]. In addition, the study indicated that Poles, Latinos, and African Americans were absent from the upper echelons of Chicago's largest corporations: 102 out of the 106 organizations had no directors who were Polish; 97 had no officers with the Polish descent. Only one corporation had a Black officer and only two had Latin officers. Even though the Italians were more numerous in executive positions than other three groups, 81 corporations out of 106 still lacked an Italian director, and 75 had no officers of Italian descent [40. P. 423-424]. Professor Barta also conducted a similar study in Detroit (MI) and came up with similar results. In his speech to the Commission, he noted that Poles, Italians, Hispanics, and blacks were seriously underrepresented in the executive suites of Detroit's largest corporations, considering their size in the overall population [41. P. 489].

Leonard Walentynowicz also examined the issue of white ethnics' employment. He underscored the fact that the Federal Government was interested in collecting data regarding employment policies in the following five categories: blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and whites (other than His-panics). "The best examples are the EEOC reporting forms...that... reflect Government standards for data collection and analysis" [34. P. 381]. Those were the categories that, in Walentynowicz's words, were the ones "that we use in deciding who gets jobs and who doesn't get jobs, or who gets Federal monies and who doesn't get Federal monies, who gets educational opportunities and who doesn't get educational opportunities. Nevertheless in practice and reality, these are the five categories that count" [34. P 381]. He further stressed that, regardless of personal circumstances, the first four categories acquired the benefits of affirmative action, and that everyone from the fifth category, which included white ethnics, "either was guilty of discrimination or had to suffer the consequences of providing the benefits of affirmative action for the persons in the first four categories" [34. P 381]. In many cases, white ethnics tried to prove their relation to designated minorities by distancing themselves from whites and explicitly stating that their affiliation with the WASPs imposed on them an unfair burden of white guilt for discrimination of the people of color. In addition, they argued that their exclusion from the affirmative action policy put them at a disadvantage position since designated minorities with similar experiences benefited from the white ethnics' elimination from the policy and their constant contribution to the economic development of the country. The irony is that prior to the Civil Rights Movement, Euro-ethnics attempted to be associated with white America, as the whites had full citizenship, meaning the access to social and economic advantages in the society. However, after the rhetoric of multiculturalism became the predominant trajectory of the American society, and when African American and Latino movements were on the rise, white ethnics quickly began to embrace their own ethnic distinction and fight for benefits that from now on did not belong to the whites.

Continuing to analyze white ethnic status, Walentynowicz was especially worried about the enactment by Congress of the Small Business Administration Section 8a minority program which (by the time of the Conference in 1979) established the first four groups as beneficiaries. The Executive Director of the PAC noted the existence of a clause that stated that if members of a different group could prove their social, cultural, or economic disadvantage, they could also apply for Section 8 benefits. However, he was extremely skeptical about the implementation of this clause in practice, especially in relation to white ethnics:

"But what can a small businessman, such as an Italian, Ukrainian or what have you, spend money he doesn't have to collect the data to provide it? So it's a Catch-22.... It created the illusion for the person who is non-black or non-Hispanic that he can have benefits immediately, if he can prove the need and then ironically and cruelly the Government doesn't make the data available for him to prove it.... How can the small businessman who's looking for a 60 to 70 thousand dollar loan spend an equal amount of money to prove that he's being discriminated and needs the benefits under a Section 8 program? It becomes even more absurd when one considers that the government concentrates its data collection on the two groups that automatically qualify for Section 8 benefits" [34. P 382-383].

Walentynowicz went on to argue that white ethnics were not being treated fairly in the area of employment, regardless of whether they were the victims of discrimination themselves. "Why should the people who have fought like the devil for the civil rights of other Americans, black, Hispanic and others - and still do fight for such rights - be asked now to accept present concepts of Affirmative Action" that in effect ignores white ethnic's poor position in the society [34. P. 383]. What also astonished Walentynowicz what that, while establishing those affirmative action categories, the Government did not take into account any concerns of Polish Americans or any other white ethnics groups. Consequently, numerous job opportunities for white ethnics and their upward mobility were hampered. In order to resolve the issue, Walentynowicz recommended that the Government create separate categories for such groups as Polish Americans, Italian Americans, and others. In the additional materials to his Statement, the Executive Director of the PAC asked for the addition of the following language in Title II, Section 202 (b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: "The Office shall gather and maintain information on categories of employees and individuals beyond those presently designated as minorities. There shall be as many categories as the Office receives complaints reflecting the specific type of discrimination" [42. P. 439-440]. Walentynowicz also advocated for the addition of the following language in Title III, Part D:

(d) All forms of prohibited discrimination shall be given the same priority and attention especially in formulation and implementation of any affirmative action plan. Whenever data and numbers are used either to establish discrimination or to remedy the effects thereof such as timetables and goals, comparable data and analyses must be created for all other forms of prohibited discrimination including all of the categories created pursuant to Section 202 (b) hereof 42. P. 440-441].

These recommendations were never added, but they reflected white ethnic concerns about the affirmative action policy and their exclusion from it.

Another topic related to white ethnic discontent with affirmative action programs was the issue of labeling. In his speech, Walentynowicz stressed the point that labeling white ethnics as an "other" group was very offensive. "I'm not an 'other.' Or a 'none of the above.' Do you want to be called a 'none of the above?' ... And then finally, because of the insulting nature of those labels.we were then lumped into the category labeled 'White, other than Hispanic.' Is it really an improvement or just another insult? I mean, how do I get my identity by reference to someone else's identity?" [34. P. 384-385] If every group and every applicant were properly identified, Walentynowicz predicted there would be less conflict and tension in the society: Otherwise, affirmative action would shut some people out, thus becoming a new form of exclusion. In a similar manner, the Supreme Vice-President of the Ukrainian National Association Myron Kuropas stated that many Euro-ethnics believed affirmative action programs were a form of reverse discrimination which penalized those least able to absorb the socio-economic loss. According to him, "after 20 years of attempting to sensitize the Federal establishment to the value of the pluralistic model, the pleas of Euro-ethnics to the Government are either politely ignored or dismissed as racist in effect" [43. P. 534].

Even though the conference on "Civil Rights Issues of Euro-Ethnic Americans in the United States: Opportunities and Challenges" did not necessarily change the government's attitude or compel it to include white ethnic groups in the affirmative action category, it demonstrated the willingness and readiness of white

ethnics to influence the minority rights revolution. This conference demonstrated one of the few examples when representatives of white ethnics combined their efforts and expressed their unified position before the Civil Rights Commission. Stressing the existing issues of white ethnics' discrimination and underrepresenta-tion and providing numerous evidence on this issue, they emphasized the importance of recognizing Euro-ethnics as a designated minority and granting them the benefits of the affirmative action policy. Overall, the conference established the validity of the white ethnic voice and the willingness of the Civil Rights Commission to address white ethnic grievances.

Explanations for White Ethnics' Exclusion

Government officials justify white ethnic exclusion from minority rights policy recognition in four ways. First, they cite a practical problem with identifying white ethnic groups. It was hard to visually categorize a person's ethnicity and determine who actually belonged to a religious or ethnic group. For many officials, physical characteristics such as being African American, white, male, female or Asian were permanent, unchanging characteristics. Hence, "affirmative action in such areas can be accomplished and measured without undue complications or invasions of privacy" [19. P. 1784]. Despite similar potential difficulties in identifying the racially ambiguous category of Latinos, white ethnicity, according to them, was a completely different issue that required additional effort and time.

Secondly, they argued, white ethnics simply had not suffered enough to analogize them with African Americans and other official minorities. Policy elites perceived white ethnics as different from African Americans along both definitional and moral dimensions. The moral perception of the officials could be summarized in the following memo: "There is no question that there has been religious and ethnic discrimination, however, there is no parallel between that discrimination and the discrimination suffered by Negroes, other minorities and women who are separately covered by Revised Order No. 4" [19. P. 1784]. It was white ethnics who were seen as insufficiently oppressed and difficult to identify. In 1974 House hearings on the civil rights obligations of higher education institutions, Mario Biaggi (D-NY) and Jack Kemp (R-NY) demanded the EEOC chair John Powell Jr. to explain his refusal to target Euro-ethnics for protection. In response, Powell stated that white ethnics had not suffered as much as blacks, implying they were unworthy for special treatment [13. P. 184].

Thirdly, white ethnics had too many identities apart from the ethnic one: they differed among each other along religious, cultural, and political lines. Practically being the "almost-minority," white ethnics seemed to be difficult to cohere as a group. "Were they 'ethnics,' or Catholics, or Italian/Polish/Irish? How did they view themselves? This was an experiment that did not ultimately work" because Euro-ethnics were being included within a new group whose claim of victimhood originated from the claims made by minorities [12. P. 217]. Later, they would also feel that they were deprived by the affirmative action policy that alleviated the disadvantaged status of others.

Finally, politicians did not recognize white ethnics as a properly mobilized group. Despite a high number of associations and the presence of ethnic advocates in Congress, this mobilization was often characterized by weak leadership, poor organization, limited resources, few mass protests, and inconsistent goals. There was no real mass mobilization, commitment, and unity of purpose among them. As a result, they failed to prove their status as a victimized minority and, consequently, were left out of affirmative action policy. The irony of these explanations is that many of the same reasons for exclusions of white ethnics from the ameliorative policy could be applied to other designated groups, in particular, Asians, Latinos, and the disabled. Except for a small number of local cases - namely, Italian American in the City University of New York and Hasidic Jews in the Minority Business Development Agency - white ethnic struggle for preferential treatment failed where other groups succeeded.

The white ethnic revival turned out to be a very complex movement that combined cultural, social, economic, and political issues. No wonder the late 1960s and especially 1970s could justly be considered the "decade of ethnics." The ethnic revival stood at the core of multiculturalism and brought a new language in the discourse of identity. From than onward, the "American" identity became a very intricate category. After decades of the Anglo-Saxon dominance and the WASP's way of life, descendants of European immigrants spoke out and rejected the idea of the melting pot. However, despite seemingly successful mobilization and the rise of European voices from all the areas of social life, white ethnics failed to accomplish one of their goals, that is being included in federal affirmative action categories. Following the steps of African Americans and other racial minorities, white ethnics were not able to succeed in that specific area on the federal level.

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Поступила в редакцию 15.12.17

Л.В. Кириллова

КОГДА «ПРОГРЕССИВНАЯ ДИСКРИМИНАЦИЯ» НЕ ДЛЯ БЕЛЫХ: ИСКЛЮЧЕНИЕ БЕЛЫХ ЭТНИЧЕСКИХ ГРУПП ИЗ ДАННОЙ ПОЛИТИКИ В 1960-1970-е ГОДЫ В США

Начиная с 1960-х годов, белые этнические группы европейского происхождения были активными сторонниками мультикультурализма в Соединенных Штатах. Их возрождение напрямую связано с социальными движениями 1960-х годов, в том числе с движением «Власть Черным» и непрерывным поиском «аутентичности». Возрождение белых этносов перенесло почитание этнической принадлежности в риторику консервативной политики. Несмотря на свою активность, этническое возрождение завершилось неудачей из-за несостоятельных попыток белых этнических групп объединить их исторический опыт с группами, подвергшимися расовому преследованию. Более того, белые этносы были внутренне разделены по вопросу о политике позитивной дискриминации в качестве мелиоративной меры, направленной на ликвидацию неравенства и дискриминации в их отношении. Данная статья предпринимает попытку объяснить внутреннюю противоречивость белого этнического движения по отношению к политике позитивной дискриминации: из-за отсутствия сплоченности по данному вопросу белые этнические группы так и не получили официального признания как меньшинства на федеральном уровне. Ирония в том, что для получения доступа к социальным благам и высокому статусу до 1960-х годов белые этносы ассоциировали себя с белыми англосаксами; однако, начиная с 1970-х годов, они начали активно воспевать свою этническую идентичность, подчеркивая собственную историю дискриминации.

Ключевые слова: политика позитивной дискриминации, белые этнические группы, движение за гражданские права, меньшинства, теории этнической идентичности, возрождение белых этносов, США в 1960-1970-е годы.

Kirillova Liana,

Ph.D. student, Teaching Assistant

Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) 1000 Faner Drive, Rm 3280 Carbondale, IL 62901, USA E-mail: [email protected]

Кириллова Ляна Викторовна, аспирант, ассистент преподавателя

Университет Южного Иллинойса (г. Карбондейл) 1000 Faner Drive, Rm 3280 Carbondale, IL 62901, USA E-mail: [email protected]