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Constructing Affirmative Action: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011)
This book should be required reading for anyone seeking to form an opinion on affirmative action. Its detailed analysis of how and why affirmative action came to be a solution to discrimination reveals just how shallow the current debates about affirmative action actually are. [Its] main contribution lies in the rich bureaucratic details it provides of how the Philadelphia Plan was developed and instituted.... [Golland] explains the complicated relationship between the building trades (where unions controlled hiring), subcontracting, and federally funded projects. He examines how mid-level bureaucrats in the Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCC) worked with local organizations in St. Louis, San Francisco, and Cleveland to develop forerunners to the Philadelphia Plan. He provides new details on the Nixon administration’s fight against the Comptroller General’s attempt to prohibit the ‘goals and timetables’ requirement of the Philadelphia Plan. He reminds us of the differences between Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits federal funding of projects involving racial discrimination and was enforced by the OFCC, and Title VII, which prohibits employment discrimination and was enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
--Jennifer Delton, author of Racial Integration in Corporate America, 1940-1990
Golland reminds us that "affirmative action" has been not just a public policy filled with ironies, interest convergences, and unintended consequences but also a struggle that at its heart challenges the privileges of white supremacy...this is both a good scholarly and general read, not to mention teaching tool. Few historians have focused so much research on the construction industry and trade unions as one of the key sites of the modern affirmative action battle. With the U.S. Supreme Court possibly poised to overturn affirmative action, we need to see what we may lose with its dismantling.
--Philip F. Rubio, author of A History of Affirmative Action, 1619-2000 and There's Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality
Golland...contends that Richard M. Nixon "was not the 'father of affirmative action' or even a 'civil rights president' by the standard set by his predecessor in the White House" (p. 4). He also argues that the "federal bureaucracy, which initially worked against the implementation of equal employment opportunity programs...came to be the most effective player for their implementation during the 1960s and 1970s" (ibid.). Finally, the author defines "affirmative action as equal opportunity" (p. 5). In other words, "Affirmative action means carefully identifying areas of inequality, taking a series of positive steps to alleviate that inequality, and following through in the long term" to get results (pp. 5-6)...In sum, Constructing Affirmative Action offers a thoughtful new interpretation, clearly presented and based on judicious research in primary sources. It will become the standard book on the struggle for equal employment opportunity in the construction trades.
--Terry Anderson, author of The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action
Buy it now at Amazon.Com.
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