Many APA members believe the Public Interest Directorate is the keeper of the association?s conscience. As a result, members often question us about the morality, ethicality or practicality of important societal question. We?ve tackled questions about racial discrimination, racial segregation, abortion and choice, disability rights, child abuse, race and intelligence, violence, gays in the military, use of tobacco, etc. In 1997 the question was affirmative action or, more precisely, who needs it? In just about every instance, psychologists have been involved in clarifying aspects of these issues through use of research or other scholarly efforts. Usually, psychologists found themselves emphasizing fairness, equity and opportunity for people and groups. Some association positions, however, revealed that psychologists (surprise! surprise!) are not of one mind on almost any issue raised. Some go so far as to resign their memberships in protest over an APA stance. This year affirmative action is becoming a burr in psychology?s saddle, as it is in the nation?s.

The unnerving aspect of the affirmative action issue is that the nation is on an economic high: Unemployment is at a peacetime low, profits and incomes are high and inflation is eerily low. Yet from almost any viewpoint, minorities and women are not reaping the greatest benefits of this sustained economic growth. Ethnic minorities and women are making 60 percent to 70 percent of what white men earn. In fact, it is becoming clear that we?re likely to become a nation of very well-off haves and very poor have-nots, with many women and lots of ethnic minorities in the lowest category.

The long road
The United States has come to affirmative action ?with all deliberate speed,? moving from chattel slavery to segregation to discrimination to ?nondiscrimination? over a period of about 300 years. Women also have moved far from their once quasipropertied status, making substantial gains in employment and autonomy over a period just as long. But it is likely that Brown v. the Board of Education coupled with the Civil Rights movement jump-started moral, political and other social processes that brought affirmative action to the nation. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon each contributed a piece to the affirmative action initiative, but none more than Johnson, who ordered an end to discrimination in the federal government and ordered ?affirmative? steps to create a more diverse workplace for ethnic minorities and, subsequently, for women.

After about 32 years of affirmative efforts, pressure is building in the society to move toward a ?colorblind? society based on ?merit.? California has taken the first steps to dismantle affirmative action in education and employment, and federal courts are making regional decisions that may reach the Supreme Court within the next year or so. Supporters of affirmative action are not optimistic.

A role for psychologists?
In much of the affirmative action debate, proponents see a need for color and gender to receive consideration in a variety of important educational and employment decisions as discrimination along those bases is continuing. Opponents believe discrimination or racism is in the past and it is time to move to merit-based decisions in education and employment. In most instances, merit is simply a code word for standardized test scores, particularly so in education.

Many tests get implicated in these decisions, but the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) seems to be the most prominent in the educational arena. Plain and simple, the SAT correlates positively with first-year college grades. The correlations typically found indicate that the SAT predicts slightly more than 25 percent of the total variance associated with first-year college performance. Those are acceptable numbers in the testing business, but one probably shouldn?t pin a merit badge on them as, at best, less than half of what happens in that first year is neither predicted nor accounted for by SAT scores.

Whenever there is an opportunity, psychologists need to say what we know and what we don?t know, generally speaking, about those correlational data. There is much to say around this issue, and the debate is sure to continue, but quite simply ?merit? indicators such as the SAT and similar test devices have a place in decision-making, but that place needs to be determined and valued in a very different way.

Psychologists can be helpful!