We recognize, however, that the removal of old barriers and disincentives does not by itself create an equal-opportunity society, or convert a divided society into a whole one, where competition is truly based on merit. Opportunities are not equal for those members of minorities-blacks, Chicanos and other Hispanics, American Indians, and others who are now disadvantaged competitively because of prior economic and social discrimination, inferior education and training, and the psychological scars of having had to live apart from the mainstream values, customs and even vocabulary of the dominant culture. To a lesser degree, prejudice and similar impediments exist for considerable numbers of whites who are consigned to fringes of the national economy because of their isolation in areas of endemic poverty (residents of rural Appalachia, for example, and regions dependent on dead or dying industries). To some extent, pockets of lingering social prejudice may continue to limit the educational and professional opportunities of still other whites such as Eastern European and Mediterranean minorities, Catholics and Jews. There are, too, the subtler, culturally ingrained prejudices which have for so long denied women in our society equal access to employment and equal pay and advancement. The human costs of all these stubborn patterns of prejudice vary enormously from one ethnic group to another, and from one region or community to another. The most pervasive damage has no doubt been done to racial minorities, especially blacks and American Indians, whose separate and inferior civil, social and economic status has historically been enforced by law. Affirmative national leadership is needed to accelerate the movement of such individuals into America's mainstream. If we are in time to become a society of genuine equality in rights, opportunities and privileges it will be because we shall have learned to treat all citizens equally, neither denying nor affording benefits on any basis other than individual merit. Endeavoring to speed that day, federal administrators have created “affirmative action" programs. Some supporters of these programs acknowledge that various quota systems have been devised to favor minority or female applicants over better qualified white males; other supporters of affirmative action deny this has been done and say opposition to these programs is added proof of the society's resistance to any substantial improvement in racial equality. We endorse those affirmative-action programs which require commitment to search for motivated individuals for acceptance in higher education and for jobs; individuals who, because of race, ethnic origin, sex, socioeconomic background or related reasons have until now had limited access to these opportunities. As a corollary we endorse grants, tax incentives, training subsidies and comparable devices to encourage remedial education and special training for individuals who require such support to bring their skills up to levels that are competitive with others who have traditionally had easier access to these same opportunities. We emphatically reject, however, bureaucratic administering of affirmativeaction "numerical goals" and "timetables" in the form of inherently arbitrary quotas which dictate statistical compliance by educational institutions, labor unions or private corporations on the mistaken presumption that a society of equality is one in which all definable groups within the society are represented in all educational disciplines, professions, labor organizations, jobs and levels of remuneration in precise proportion to the distribution of those groups within either the whole society or the particular community. Privileging or depriving certain groups in the past contributed to the inequities which the nation now endeavors to repair; we must not perpetuate arrangements which undermine constitutional guarantees of the rights of the individual citizen. We also deplore any administrative response to affirmative action, whether in higher education or in industry or commerce, which dilutes academic, professional or technical standards in order to retain or certificate women or members of minority groups in order to inflate statistically the institution's apparent compliance with objectives of such programs. Such a course is hazardous to public safety, scholarship and professionalism, as well as demeaning to those who are presumably favored by such concessions. We recognize that some admissions and qualifications tests are subject to cultural bias, and that those who enforce academic, professional and even technical standards are no more perfectly objective than are the codes they administer. Yet our common national goal must be, not the falsified appearance of equality, but actually equality in terms of the best standards which all can accept. Thus it is proper to bend or waive admission standards to, for example, a college or university only if that institution is prepared to insist on whatever remedial, compensatory and supportive tutoring may be required to insure that every student who completes that particular program is graded and certificated by the same uncompromised scholarly standards. Finally, we suggest that the goal of a single, integrated American society, where achievement and recognition are based exclusively on individual merit and performance, cannot be achieved separately from the structurally more fundamental goal of a social-political economy which is expansive enough to be able to utilize, fully and productively, the cultivable talents and skills of all its citizens. There can be no equality of opportunity in an economy in which the burdens of unemployment are high and unequally distributed. For example, poverty among blacks, the past five years, has increased, reversing a ten-year pattern of progress. The median income gap between black and white families, which steadily narrowed during the 1960's, has begun to widen and there has been a greater rise in unemployment among black than white workers. For the already disadvantaged, initial access to higher education or a job or union membership is meaningless if funds and facilities are not available to help the needy take full advantage of that opening, or if no meaningful employment beckons at the end of his or her effort. Equality or opportunity can best be fulfilled by expanding the educational, employment and other places to which all citizens may aspire. Racial inequality cannot be exercised by bureaucratic manipulation or the enforcement of anti-bias guidelines alone. There must be a massive commitment to full employment. Some romanticism and hypocrisy accompanied earlier dreams of American equality, but now on the eve of its 200th birthday, this nation is beginning to come to grips with the full meaning of the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal" and that their equal and "unalienable rights" include "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Remarkable but insufficient progress has been made so far toward realizing those idealsthe equal rights Constitutional amendments, the women's suffrage amendment, the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka decision of the Supreme Court, the civil rights legislation of the late 1950's and early 1960's, the painfully disputed but still significant progress toward school integration. Much, much more remains to be done, and Freedom House vigorously supports an accelerated effort to put our troubled and divided past behind us, and to seek together a truly open and equal society in which the rights of the individual citizen, and his or her personal fulfillment, are recognized by all as basic to this democracy. Such a course, indeed, requires affirmative national leadership. Freedom House Board of Trustees Margaret Chase Smith, Chairman Philip van Slyck, Secretary Rex Stout, Treasurer Caroline K. Simon, Assistant Treasurer Whitney North Seymour, Honorary Anthony B. Akers Ned W. Bandler, Jr. Karl R. Bendetsen John Diebold Seymour Fogel Richard Gambino Richard N. Gardner Nathaniel L. Goldstein Sidney Hook Mrs. Andrew Jackson Burns W. Roper Richard R. Salzmann Howland H. Sargeant Robert A. Scalapino Gerald L. Steibel Herbert Swope Eugene P. Wigner Jacques D. Wimpfheimer Leonard R. Sussman, Executive PREPARED STATement of Barbara R. Bergmann, MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS, AND PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND STATEMENT ON EQUAL PENSION BENEFITS FOR MEN AND WOMEN On April 27, 1974 at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of University Professors, an organization predominantly male in membership, the following motion was passed by a vote of 164 to 69: That the Sixtieth Annual Meeting of the AAUP direct the Council [of AAUP] promptly to take action to implement the principle of equal monthly retirement benefits for women and men faculty. I offer these comments in furtherance of the action mandated by that motion. Some employers, including many universities, are providing greater pension benefits for retired men employees than for retired women employees with equivalent work histories, forcing retired women into a lower standard of living as a result. This practice has been rationalized by reference to the greater costs due to the greater average longevity of women and to "actuarial soundness." We shall take the position here that allowing such practices to continue would be to permit discrimination which the Congress outlawed in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, in the Equal Pay Act, and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. We will argue that average greater longevity of women does not justify allowing employers to provide a lower standard of living for elderly retired women than elderly retired men, and that "actuarial soundness" can be achieved by other entirely feasible arrangements, arrangements which do not violate our sense of justice and the anti-discrimination laws of our country. A great principle which has emerged from the anti-discrimination legislation is that it is no longer permissible for an employer to treat any particular woman as if she were "the average woman." The employer is no longer permitted to assume that any particular woman can lift no more than the "average woman" can lift, or assume she will stay on the job as long as the "average woman's will stay, or assume that once on the job she will produce as much as the "average woman." Grouping people by sex when making decisions as to hiring, promotion, pay, or any other personnel action constitutes unlawful discrimination. An employer who wants to hire someone who will have to lift heavy objects is free to give all persons who apply a lifting test, but that employer is not free under the law to make the hiring decision on the basis of the conformation of the sex organs of the applicants. The fact of life which the law recognizes is that all men, are not, for purposes of work, different from all women; that there is a distribution of talents and propensities among men and another distribution of talents and propensities among women, and that these distributions, although not identical, do overlap. The "average" of the male distribution may be different than the "average" of the female distribution, but there are individuals in one distribution who have equivalent talents and propensities to individuals in the other distribution. As it is with talents and propensities, so it is with death ages. While the "average women" dies later than the "average man." there is considerable overlap in the distributions of death ages. If at a single point in time we were to pick at random 1000 men age 65 and 1000 women age 65, and follow them through and observe their death ages, we would find an overlap of 68.1 percent (see Figure 1). This means that we could match up 68 percent of the men with 68 percent of the women as having an identical year of death. This leaves 43 percent of the population, of whom 16 percent are men who die relatively early, unmatched by women's deaths, and of whom 16 percent are women who die relatively late, whose deaths are unmatched by male deaths. Allowing employers to provide higher pension benefits for men than for women on the grounds of higher cost is to allow employers to assume that all men are like females Area of Overlap 68.1% 80 85 Age at Death U.S. Life Tables, 1959-61 06 95 the "average man" and all women are like the "average woman" in terms of death age. It allows employers to arrange things so that the savings in annuity cost for the 16 percent of the population consisting of excess men who die early are entirely monopolized by men, 68 percent of whom are in the overlap group. The extra burdens imposed by the higher annuity costs of 16 percent of the population consisting of excess women who die late are entirely allocated by employers to women, 68 percent of whom are in the overlap group. This is "because" the conformation of the sex organs of men match those of the excess people who die early, and the sex organs of women match those in the excess people who die late. What is at issue is whether it is within the law to continue using the word "because" in this way in this context. We would argue that the law, which forbids using sex as a way of grouping employees, requires the sharing of these benefits and these costs over both sexes. Pension plans which group employees by sex constitute a denial of equal pay for equal work for the majority of the population which is in the overlap group. The women in the large overlap group with lower pensions are, to say the least, in an unfortunate position. The considerable difference in their living standard is not even compensated for by the dubious utility of a longer life; they do not cost the system any more than men do; their only crime is that they have the same sex organs as the few people in the longer-lived group. This seems a slender reason to condemn them to a considerably meaner living standard than men. Public policy embodied in the anti-discrimination legislation requires that the burden of supporting the 16 percent of the population who are longer lived be shared by the entire population, rather than putting the whole burden on the 34 percent of the population who are like the long-lived group in sex organs but not in longevity. Some employers, including many universities and colleges, purchase annuities for their employees from insurance companies rather than making pension payments directly. There are many ways these insurance companies might arrange their charges. They might (and for some purposes do) group men and women together, and, after consideration of the characteristics of the group they are insuring, charge an equal amount for each employee and promise to deliver equal monthly pension benefits to each. However, most private insurers will oblige the employer by offering to give the women employees less in terms of monthly benefits. This obliges the employer because it lowers the price the employer has to pay per employee from what it would be if all employees got the same benefit. As long as it is permissible for employers to seek to purchase such a package they will find insurance companies who will be glad to oblige them. The cost is lowered for the employer, and the buck is passed to the insurance company to do the discriminating. The pretext is the greater dollar cost of servicing the "average woman." This pretext is illegitimate for the employer to use in the context of salary, or hiring or promotion. There is no reason to permit its use in the field of pensions or fringe benefits generally. Does the fact that the pension may be purchased, rather than being provided directly by the employer, alter the employer's obligation under the law not to treat each woman as the "average woman?" If it did, then, by the same logic, employers might contract out the provision of many other fringe benefits to firms who would charge the employer the same per employee regardless of sex, yet provide lower benefits to the woman on the pretext of higher average cost of servicing the women. Even the payment of wages might be contracted out in this way, and differences justified by reference to different "costs." There is no end to the possible ingenuity of employers in maintaining differences in compensation to men and women if employers were permitted to escape the mandate of the anti-discrimination laws by passing the buck. An employer who purchases the provision of fringe benefits from outside organizations which provide unequal benefits by sex is discriminating as much as if he provided unequal benefits directly. The use of pensions as a discriminatory device is made crystal clear by the practice of many universities and colleges in treating death benefits and pension annuities in an inconsistent manner. In the case of benefits for death before retirement, higher mortality of the "average man" and the higher costs it entails are ignored and men and women are frequently given the same benefit. In figuring death benefits, men are frequently given the "advantage" of averaging out men's and women's mortality. The same university may then turn around and again give men the advantage in retirement benefits by failing to average out men's and women's mortality. If the university (and the insurance organization which sells |