Russell V. Boham

Recently the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held public hearings concerning the merit of affirmative action programs in both the public and private sectors. The Commission heard voices from both sides of two major issues: (1) Are affirmative action programs effective? and (2) Are affirmative action programs destructive to those they are intended to serve (assuming they are indeed effective)?

The results of the Commission’s hearings were "No Results," as expected when discussion centers on emotional issues and where philosophically opposed camps are equally balanced. It was evident that the Commission never intended the hearings as a mechanism of resolution, since they had already decided the issues, as evidenced by prior Commission recommendations to scrap affirmative action programs. The hearings appeared to be a facade to validate Commission recommendations born of a strong white male backlash in a shrinking job market. Cries of "Reverse Discrimination" are reverberating across the nation. Nowhere is the resentment against minorities in the work place more evident than in occupations formerly the virtual exclusive domain of the white male. Exemplifying the history of white-male domination are the professional fields of natural resources management. This fact has been noted and efforts are being made to increase the numbers of qualified minorities in the natural resource disciplines.

The Native American Career Education in Natural Resources (NACENR) program at Humboldt State University is a California state-funded organization that has as its mission the education of Native Americans in the natural resources disciplines. Through NACENR’s counseling efforts, it has been noted that Native American students (assuming they may represent minority students in general) are indoctrinated early on in their educational careers by professors, guest lecturers and other students as to the attitudes of white males at "losing ground" in areas of previous exclusive employment privilege.

The reverse discrimination doctrine is so pervasive that many of NACENR’s students have expressed feelings of guilt and of self-doubt. The students are forced to defend themselves and their qualifications or to acquiesce that they are somehow undeserving. The resultant lowering of self-esteem can manifest itself in lowered goal-achievement expectation by individuals subject to continued deriding. The long term affects in the ability of students to be successful in the rigorous natural resources discipline or to compete in the field as professionals would take years to document and study. However, it is reasonable to assume that success rates in both education and employment for minorities in natural resources will continue to be lower than desirable if for no other reason than the effects of the aforementioned phenomenon.

In order to better conduct personal and career counseling NACENR conducted a survey of state and federal agencies that employ natural resources professionals. A total of 185 surveys were sent out to various governmental offices listed in the Conservation Directory (1985, National Wildlife Federation) during September 1985. There was a 39% response rate overall with federal agencies responding at a slightly higher rate. The survey requested employment information by ethnicity, by grade/rank and by job title. In addition the number of new hires by job title and minority (or nonminority) status for 1984 and 1985 was also requested.

For the purposes of this report the data were combined creating two categories, minorities and whites. Data sets were compared by contrasting groupings of state agency data and federal agency data. Whites vs. minorities and state vs. federal analysis were conducted: (1) to compare the mean, median, mode and range of the number of whites professionally employed by state and federal agencies to the mean, median, mode and range of the number of minorities professionally employed by state and federal agencies; (2) to determine if the proportions of minorities professionally employed in natural resource positions nationwide will approximate the proportions of minorities in the population at large, a chi-squared goodness of fit test was conducted; (3) to determine if the average proportion of minorities in the state agencies work force is the same as the average proportion of minorities in the federal agencies work force, an analysis of variance test was conducted; (4) to determine if there is a relationship between employment potential and minority status, state and federal data were combined, a correlation coefficient (r value) was calculated, and a student t test was conducted to determine significance.

On the average (the arithmetic mean), federal agencies employ 9.93 minorities and 201.69 whites in professional categories. The median revealed that 50% of federal agencies employ more than 6.50 minorities and 50% employ less than 6.50 minorities while the median for whites is 101.00. The most frequently occurring number (the mode) of minorities employed by federal agencies is 0 while the mode for whites is multimodal at 18, 51 and 63. The range for minorities is 46 and for whites it is 889.

The chi-squared goodness of fit test tested HO, the hypothesis that in state and federal agencies minority representation in professional ranks in natural resource classifications is the same, 16.85% (U.S. Census, 1980), as it is in the population at large. The critical value of 3.841 (oc = .05) was exceeded with a calculated value of 1037.16. HO was rejected.

The analysis of variance test compared the mean of the proportions of minorities employed in state agencies to the mean of the proportions of minorities employed in federal agencies. The state agency mean proportion is 0.0389 and the federal agency mean proportion is 0.0539. The critical F value was 3.99 (oc = 0.5) and the calculated F value was 1.23. The HO that the means are equal cannot be rejected.

The linear regression analysis was conducted and tested with a two-tailed t-statistic (oc = .05). The critical t was -2.011 and +2.011. The calculated t was -1.59 based on a correlation coefficient of -0.23 and 48 degrees of freedom. The HO that there is no relationship between recent employment status and minority status is retained.

Minorities continue to be very poorly represented as professionals in the fields of natural resources. Their proportions in the natural resources work force fall far below their proportions in the population at large. Despite outrage by white males in the natural resources fields at perceived inequities in hiring practices, which in their minds favor minorities, the evidence does not support their claims.

Recent (1984-1985) hiring by natural resources agencies indicate no statistically significant relationship between hiring practices and minority status. It is interesting to note, however, that the correlation coefficient for this data was a negative value. In fact, 94% of the new hires in 1984 and 1985 were white.

Not only are minorities not saturating the job market such that whites cannot compete, the numbers are low enough that there is a possible indictment of the agencies whose hiring practices keep minorities at 73% below proportional representation. The data indicates that state and federal agencies must share equally in the blame. There are obviously many factors that keep minority representation below equitable standards. Many of these factors are beyond the control of the natural resource agency. However, perpetuating the myth that white males cannot get jobs because of minorities is flagrantly damaging to prospects of movement toward equity. EEO and civil rights officers who present minority access programs to predominantly white male audiences without also discussing the numbers of white males being hired and promoted, can be the most conspicuous targets for criticism by creating and perpetuating the myth. Balancing these presentations with the true figures that reflect across the board agency hiring and promotion statistics is an institutional responsibility. Educators who not only espouse the doctrine of reverse discrimination but also allow it to be proclaimed in their classrooms without knowledge of the facts are guilty of covert racism if not simply unconscious racism. It seems that minorities themselves have had a hand in perpetuating the myth by accepting it carte blanche. For anyone reading this study, not having the data is no longer a valid excuse.

This study, while quite revealing, only skims the surface. Of course, it is evident that NACENR and other minority students of natural resources need not feel any guilt for a perceived "employment advantage" that the data strongly suggests exists only "in the minds" of those who by numbers alone enjoy the actual employment advantage. An objective look at the data should indicate to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that much more work needs to be done in terms of access to opportunities for minorities in education and job related experience before the concept of Equal Employment Opportunity can even be approached. I recommend a more complete analysis of the data and further study!

Allport, Gordon W. (1958). The nature of prejudice. New York: Doubleday.

National Wildlife Federation. (1958). Conservation directory. Washington, D.C.: Author.

United States Commission on Civil Rights. (1979). Toward an understanding of Bakke (Clearinghouse publication 58). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government printing office.

United States Forest Service. (1975). Proceedings of a workshop on entry of minorities into natural resource careers. New Orleans: Southern Forest Experiment Station.

United States General Accounting Office. (1977). The Bureau of Indian Affairs should do more to help educate Indian students. Washington, D.C.: Author.