Six years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated a program that reserved 30% of the city of Richmond Virginia's construction work for minorities. This legal standard started an affirmative action avalanche. It was estimated that the minority share of construction dollars dropped from 41.6% to 2.2%. This year, the focus for the U.S. Supreme Court is on federal programs that help companies classified as "disadvantaged." Diversity experts argue that another negative decision could prompt companies to revert back to "blatant discrimination" in the workplace.
While the flames are roaring in Washington over such decisions, Corporate America is focusing on how to best utilize its current diverse workforce. Major corporations are establishing diversity management programs and devising methods to develop the minorities and women they have on staff. Their goal is to be prepared for the year 2000 where statistics show that the American workforce will become older, more female and more culturally diverse.
The corporate trend today, is to establish professional contact with minorities as early as high school. High school mentoring programs, internships and community work group programs are being fine tuned to foster such professional ties.
According to the August 14, 1995, issue of Business Weekly, companies are using the following methods to hold on to female and minority employees:
Despite such efforts by Corporate America, woman and minorities hold just 5% of senior level jobs. Of the minorities who have obtained top jobs, they are in "soft positions" such as human resources. In other words, there is still quite a bit of work left to be done.