Industrial/Organizational Psychology

 
The personnel director at East High School thinks she is in big trouble. Ten years ago, 30% of the residents in the county were Hispanic yet only 5% of the school employees were Hispanic. To remedy this situation, the school system developed an affirmative action program in which at least 40% of all new hires were to be Hispanic. The program had been working well because today 25% of all school employees are Hispanic compared to 28% in the qualified work force.
Last week, however, a white employee who wasn’t hired for a teaching job filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the affirmative action plan. Tory Bolton claimed that he was more qualified than the minority applicant who received the job. Bolton had a 3.4 college GPA and three years of teaching experience whereas George Lopez, the minority applicant, had only a 3.2 GPA and two years of teaching experience. Should the personnel director be worried? Why or why not? Use the flowchart on page 105 of your text (Figure 3.4) as a guide. Be sure to discuss your decision at each step of the flowchart.

Each step of the flowchart:
1. Was there history of discrimination?
2. Does the plan benefit only people who were actual victims of discrimination? 
3. What population was used to establish goals?
4. Did Affirmative action method trammel rights to non-minority? 
5. Is there an ending to the plan?