It is safe to say that the East High School personnel director should not be worried about Tory Bolton filing a lawsuit against the educational organization’s hiring rules. According to Aamodt (2015), any hiring policy “must be narrowly tailored and meet a compelling government interest”; otherwise, it is illegal (p. 105). In this case, affirmative action serves as a compelling government interest. Experts note that it is “an active effort to improve employment or educational opportunities for members of minority groups and for women” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d., para. 1). This political and socioeconomic approach was initiated by the state more than half a century ago. Therefore, the actions of the personnel director are legal and, given the demographic conditions in the county, should be encouraged.
Five criteria help one determine the appropriateness and legality of affirmative action measures. The first question is whether East High School has a history of discrimination (Aamodt. 2015). The answer to this is yes, as employees of Hispanic descent were underrepresented in the school staff. The second one is whether the adopted hiring method is beneficial only to the discriminated Hispanic population (Aamodt. 2015). The answer is also positive here since the hiring policy aims to increase the number of school workers only of Hispanic descent. The next question is about which population was used in goal-setting (Aamodt. 2015). As noted above, they are a qualified workforce, namely Hispanic school employees. The fourth criterion asks whether the affirmative action measures taken violated the rights of non-minorities (Aamodt. 2015). The answer is no since the preferential selection was between two qualified teachers, a minority and a non-minority. The last criterion asks if the current hiring policy has an ultimate goal. The personnel director sees a teaching staff with over 40% of teachers of Hispanic origin as an endpoint, which means it has one.
References
Aamodt, M. G. (2015). Industrial/organizational psychology: An applied approach (8th ed.). Cengage.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Affirmative action. Encyclopedia Britannica. Web.