Integration
Integration
INTEGRATION POLICY RATIONALES AND IMPLEMENTATION
INTEGRATION: A DREAM FULFILLED OR DEFERRED?
THE PERSISTENCE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION AND RESEGREGATION
INTEGRATION IN CROSS-NATIONAL CONTEXTS
Integration is the process by which individuals and groups come to interact freely and equally in society without regard to distinctions of skin color. In a completely racially integrated society, no systemic or institutional discrimination exists against the members of any racial group. Even if economic and cultural differences exist, these do not decrease access to employment, housing, politics, health, public services, and recreation for any racial group. Integration has both formal and substantive dimensions. Formal integration is based on principles, laws, and symbols that represent equality and nondiscrimination. Substantive integration involves the implementation (or actualization) of integration laws and is reflected in the significant and sustained incorporation of minority groups into the economic, political, and social institutions of the larger society.
By contrast, segregation describes a situation in which members of different racial groups rarely come into contact with one another or interact as social equals. Under segregation, separation along racial lines applies to nearly all aspects of life and those contacts between racial groups that do occur are socially controlled. Social distance is reflected in a “color line” that clearly demarcates dominant and subordinate groups. Segregation may vary from de jure forms, which are overt, formal, and written into law, to de facto forms that are covert coded, and informal and exist independently of the law. In the United States, “Jim Crow” de jure segregation was dominant from the end of Reconstruction up until the early 1960s. In the North and West, however, de facto segregation based on custom and institutional discrimination was more prevalent.
Desegregation is the legal remedy used to bring about reforms in previously segregated institutions (Clark 1953, p. 2). While desegregation is often associated with “racial balance” and “racial mixing,” and is necessary for the achievement of integration, it alone is not sufficient to bring about racial integration. First, while desegregation meets the expectations of formal integration in that it follows the “letter of the law,” it does not meet those requirements of substantive integration that come closer to the “spirit of the law.” Formal integration places the burden of integrating on the disadvantaged group and is commonly accomplished through “token” efforts. Secondly, desegregation does not necessitate that people in the reformed institutions interact freely and equally and without discrimination. Resegregation can occur with desegregation. For example, efforts to desegregate schools may result in “white flight” or the establishment of different tracks in schools, with disadvantaged racial groups disproportionately assigned to lower tracks. Third, the implementation of desegregation tends to be uneven and is influenced by the history, culture, and politics of different regions and communities and the salience of local color lines.
INTEGRATION POLICY RATIONALES AND IMPLEMENTATION
Racial segregation existed as both the “spirit” and “letter” of the law in the United States from the end of Reconstruction through the early post–World War II years. In 1896 the landmark Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson declared racial segregation constitutional so long as public facilities were “separate but equal.” The development of a system of “Jim Crow” segregation, built on dominant American beliefs in white supremacy, was socially reproduced in institutions, organizations, and daily folkways and mores. Discrimination restricted most black Americans that remained in the South to farm, domestic, and unskilled labor, and disproportionately subjected them to involuntary servitude in the form of convict labor. Indentured jobs and union membership were mostly closed to blacks, and when blacks were hired they were often used as strikebreakers. Blacks also suffered economic discrimination when it came to securing land, credit, and public relief and social welfare. The disenfranchisement of most blacks from voting and jury selection occurred as a consequence of violence, lynching, intimidation, “white-only” primaries, and poll taxes. Segregation and discrimination also extended to public schools, libraries, churches, recreational facilities, transportation, and other public accommodations.
Rationales for integrationist policy eventually emerged in response to sociopolitical changes brought about by World War II and the cold war, and as a result of the growing struggle for racial equality. As the United States entered World War II and the moral and ideological imperatives of fighting against German fascism and Nazi racial doctrines became increasingly evident, American leaders turned to inclusive egalitarian values to justify the war. Black leaders, black newspapers, and civil rights organizations called for a “Double V” Campaign—for victory against both fascism abroad and racism at home. The large-scale military and economic mobilization of the United States during World War II and the early years of the cold war involved a significant number of black Americans, both in the military and in civilian society. Black Americans struggled against the segregation and discrimination that continued during wartime, as evidenced by A. Phillip Randolph’s March on Washington Movement (1941), which sought to end discrimination in defense industries, and by a campaign that threatened to mount civil disobedience protests against the segregation of the armed forces (1948). President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 8802 (1941), which prohibited discrimination in industries receiving federal defense contracts, and President Harry Truman’s signing of Executive Order 9981 (1948), which integrated the armed forces, represented victories for these protest movements and provided precedents for substantive economic integration (Bennett 2003).
In the postwar period, the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union and the international struggle to win the allegiance of newly independent non-white nations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas led to the articulation of enlarged moral and ideological imperatives favorable to racial equality. The convergence between these imperatives and the continuing struggles of black Americans and civil rights organizations against segregation and discrimination resulted in Supreme Court decisions and federal policies fostering integration (Klinkner 1999; Klarman 2004). Justifications for integration and desegregation policies also derived from practical considerations. By the cold war years, the cost of maintaining “separate but equal” schools and other facilities in the South had mounted substantially and was becoming increasingly impractical. “Equalization” strategies that were successfully used by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) during the 1930s and 1940s forced many Southern districts that wanted to maintain legal segregation to duplicate services and overspend on resources (McNeil 1983).
Those seeking to develop rationales for the implementation of integrationist policies were forced to consider two competing models of governance. A strong and centralized federal government with the ability to enact and forcefully implement civil rights laws was viewed as necessary by a coalition of liberal politicians and civil rights organizations who believed that only such a force could undo the historic and continuing effects of segregation and discrimination. It was recognized that reforms in segregation laws would open up the opportunity structure and improve the social and economic status of black Americans (Myrdal 1944; Clark 1953). Another, older conception of how racial justice might be achieved argued for reliance on local governments (i.e., “states rights”), and emphasized that states and local areas, rather than the federal government, should determine the appropriateness of laws concerning the functioning of institutions, including the color line. This conservative and segregationist coalition argued that only when the local folkways and mores had accepted the imperatives of racial equality should integration and desegregation occur.
The landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education (1954) illustrates the attempt to balance these competing conceptions of governance and, in effect, to reconcile integration and segregation. The Supreme Court’s invalidation of the “separate but equal” doctrine with respect to school segregation provided arguments that formally initiated school desegregation. With respect to implementation, however, the Supreme Court ordered no immediate remedy and deferred reargument until the following year (1955). The Supreme Court endorsed a “gradual transition” to desegregation (“with all deliberate speed”) that took local conditions into account and was sensitive to the “flexibility” of traditional principles of equitableness. The justices reasoned that immediate desegregation was unenforceable, impractical, and would lead to violence and school closures. President Eisenhower and the Justice Department supported a decentralized approach that would allow district court judges to return to the case and reargue it with limited guidance. By contrast, civil rights organizations such as the NAACP had urged complete and immediate desegregation (Klarman 2004).
Justification for integrationist policies also derived from the convergence between cold war domestic politics of the “Great Society” and the heightened mobilization of the civil rights movement during the early 1960s. The sustained mobilization of local organizing committees and movement organizations such as the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Council, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, along with the organized and sometimes violent resistance of local white institutional actors and communities, brought to America’s consciousness the contradiction between democratic ideals and continued segregation and discrimination. The enactment and implementation of integrationist policies signified that the goals of the civil rights movement were legitimate and had been met—and that it was thus no longer necessary to mobilize demonstrations and protests. Minimalist conceptions of integration emphasized the principle of each individual being judged only by the “content of their character” and not by racial, ethnic, or religious distinctions.
The integration policies enacted during the 1960s comprised the most sweeping civil rights legislation in American history. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was designed to target and prohibit all aspects of discrimination: voter discrimination (Titles I and VIII), public accommodation discrimination (Title II), public facilities segregation (Title III), segregation of educational facilities (Title IV), and employment discrimination (Title VII). It also mandated Civil Rights Commission investigations (Title IV) and established various federally assisted programs (Title VI). Resistance in several Southern states to ending voter discrimination was met head on by the mobilization of civil rights organizations, which resulted in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This allowed federal registrars to take over the voter registration process in areas where past discrimination existed and oversee the polls on elections. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibited discrimination in housing, followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Implementation of nondiscrimination policies depended on the voluntary actions of private-sector corporations, businesses, and firms, on public-sector bureaucracies and agencies, and on federal enforcement agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program (OFCCP). The policy of prohibiting racial discrimination in the employment practices of businesses that hold contracts with the government was formally strengthened with President John Kennedy’s issuing of Executive Order 1375, which established an obligation on the part of federal contractors not only to refrain from discrimination but also to undertake “affirmative action” to ensure that equal employment principles are followed. The implementation of affirmative action as governmental policy took root under President Richard Nixon’s administration as the “Philadelphia Plan.” The government’s motivation for pursuing the Philadelphia Plan was largely political, as the policy was designed to drive a wedge between the civil rights community and organized labor (Klinkner 1999, p. 294). As affirmative action evolved it came to encompass various programs and measures to improve the educational, employment, and business opportunities of racial minorities, women, and other socially disadvantaged groups.
INTEGRATION: A DREAM FULFILLED OR DEFERRED?
Integration affirmed the principles of democracy and equality and sought the progressive inclusion of black Americans into the institutions and organizations of American society. As with nondiscrimination policies, the implementation of integration policies depended in practice on the voluntary actions of private-sector corporations and businesses, on public-sector bureaucracies, and on federal enforcement agencies. At the same time, federal court decisions mandating school desegregation were constrained by cautious gradualism, the persistence of localism and “states rights” governance, and high levels of racial segregation in the largest cities, where blacks were increasingly living. Federal integration policies had their most immediate impact in the South, where there was a history of de jure segregation.
While the effects of integration were immediately evident in the desegregation of public accommodations and the extension of voting rights, these advances did not translate into economic integration (or economic rights). After 1965 Martin Luther King increasingly emphasized the goal of achieving economic equality, which, he argued, would derive from: (1) the refocusing of macroeconomic policy from military-industrial spending and the Vietnam War to domestic economic spending and the poor; (2) improving black economic competitiveness through education and training; and (3) blacks leveraging their buying power by boycotting specific goods and services (King 1968). King’s opposition to the Vietnam War and his support for the Memphis garbage-workers strike and the Poor People’s Campaign were intertwined with his advocacy of economic rights. Since the late 1960s, civil rights organizations have followed King’s lead by embracing affirmative action, “set-asides,” “moral covenant” policies, and minority franchises (Walker 1998).
That integration was a dream deferred was made evident by the Kerner Commission’s report, which warned that America was increasingly becoming two societies: one black, and living in the central cities; the other white, and living in the suburbs (National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1968). Integration’s inability to address the social and economic conditions of the black masses and continuing conflicts between blacks and whites over education, jobs, housing, and the police led to the emergence of separatist and nationalist movements during the 1960s. Malcolm X, a national spokesman for the Nation of Islam, argued that black nationalism and separatism, rather than integration, were necessary for black empowerment and social improvement. Within segregated communities and ghettos, blacks were challenged to develop a sense of history, social consciousness, and solidarity and to support black institutions and organizations that would enable freedom and self-determination (Breitman 1990). The emergence of the black power movement signaled the fact that instead of embracing integration, blacks were increasingly “closing ranks” and seeking to control political and other institutions in black communities. At the same time that it criticized integration and black liberal coalitions, the black power movement introduced the concept of institutional racism to identify the complex intersection between institutional actions, cultural beliefs, and policies that contribute to the subordination of blacks (Carmichael and Hamilton 1967).
While federal policies of integration and desegregation began to reshape race relations in the South, in the North and West there was much less recognition on the part of white Americans that racism, discrimination, and segregation existed.
THE PERSISTENCE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION AND RESEGREGATION
The introduction of federal programs intended to foster integration was largely initiated during the cold war years of the 1960s. During the post–civil rights years of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the declining significance of cold war ideological and moral imperatives and of New Deal coalitions in national Democratic Party politics was accompanied by the rise of increasingly conservative political and social movements urging resistance to integration and racial equality. While the universal principles of integration were widely embraced, programs to implement integration and desegregation were frequently resisted (Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, and Krysan 1997).
The retreat from racial equality and the dismantling of programs intended to foster desegregation and integration have taken several forms. First, institutions such as the Supreme Court have retreated from strong interpretations of school desegregation, minority “set-asides,” and affirmative action. At the same time, federal agencies such as the EEOC and the Fair Employment Practices Committee have been weakened by diminished funding. Second, in policy discussions and popular discourse affirmative action and integration programs are being redefined as “reverse discrimination.” Although affirmative action applies to protected classes defined not only by race, but also by gender, age, and disability, and although enforcement of gender-based affirmative action largely surpass race-based enforcement, the discourse of “reverse discrimination” largely relates to the politics of racial resentment. Third, white Americans’ perceptions and beliefs concerning race-based economic inequality are more likely to emphasize individualistic explanations than structural or systemic explanations (Kluegel and Smith 1986; Kluegel 1990).
Despite important civil rights reforms such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, and affirmative action, racial segregation continues to socially structure housing, education, the workforce, and other social institutions and organizations. Racial segregation remains a widespread social relationship, practice, and symbol of racial and ethnic inequality in American society. Continued patterns of segregation experienced by racial minority groups symbolize and actualize the lower social status of these groups in the social hierarchy and their limited access to opportunities and resources connected to the American Dream.
During the post–civil rights years, high levels of black segregation have continued despite small but steady decreases in segregation in those metropolitan areas with the largest black populations. Sociologists use a “segregation index” to measure the degree of segregation, ranging from 0 for full integration to 100 for complete segregation. In 2000 the average black-white segregation index in U.S. metropolitan areas was 65, and in the Northeast and Midwest it was 74 (Iceland, Weinberg, and Steinmetz 2002). Based on a multidimensional construct of segregation with five dimensions of spatial variability—evenness, isolation, clustering, and concentration—and scores of at least 60 on four of the five dimensions, twenty metropolitan areas were identified as “hypersegregated.” Together, these contained roughly eleven million black Americans (in 1990) and constituted 36 percent of the entire U.S. black population (Massey and Denton 1993).
Hispanic segregation in metropolitan areas has been more moderate, with average scores ranging from 46 to 55 (between 1970 and 1990) (Denton and Massey 1988), and Asian segregation has been relatively lower than both black and Hispanic levels (averaging from 36 to 44 between 1970 and 1990) (Massey 2001, pp. 407–409). One of the most salient features of segregation is the concentration of blacks in central cities and whites in suburbs.
Racial segregation tends to be socially reproduced across institutional contexts. Individuals in racial groups who are segregated in one institutional area—whether in housing, education, employment, criminal justice, or informal social interactions—are also likely to have mostly segregated experiences in other institutional environments.
The persistence of internal segregation in schools derives from institutional relationships and public policies. High levels of residential segregation are associated with commensurate levels of racial segregation in schools. Although school segregation decreased between 1968 and 1980 as a result of judicial enforcement, during the 1980s and 1990s governmental inaction and deregulation of mechanisms to desegregate schools led to increasing resegregation. In many school districts where court-mandated desegregation has ended, there has been a major increase in segregation (Orfield and Lee 2004). Levels of school segregation have been higher in the Northeast and Midwest than in the South and West (Orfield 2001). The abandonment of desegregation as public policy has mirrored the rise in national politics of the assumption that segregation and racial inequality are historic problems that have already been addressed. Contemporary movements to expand educational choice, through publicly funded vouchers that enable students to attend private schools, are occurring in a context in which the civil rights afforded by the Brown decision are being derailed.
Racial minorities who attend racially segregated urban schools are less likely to take college preparatory courses and attend college than those in more integrated and suburban schools. Teacher assignment practices reinforce inequality, because the least proficient teachers tend to be assigned to the least desirable schools, which are often in minority neighborhoods. Yet even in more integrated schools, minorities experience disadvantage due to lower expectations on the part of teachers and placement in lower tracks.
During the post–civil rights years, continued improvements were made in high school graduation rates across racial groups, which was reflected in a narrowing of the racial gap. Although actual and percentage levels of college graduation increased for all groups during the 1990s, there has been a growing racial gap in college attendance rates between whites and blacks and between non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics (Blank 2001, pp. 25–26). Recent efforts in higher education to increase academic standards and eliminate affirmative action have come at the expense of continued movement toward racial equality and educational opportunity.
Continuing racial segregation and discrimination has affected wealth accumulation, earned incomes, and employment chances across racial groups. Racial differences in wealth, which reflect intergenerational wealth and current asset ownership, are more extreme than income differences. Wealth differences are reflected in differences in levels of home ownership, which are not merely the result of income differences but rather a product of the historical legacy of residential segregation, Federal Housing Authority and Veterans Administration policies, and redlining. Blacks are rejected for home loans 60 percent more often than whites with the same income level, black families pay more in mortgage interest than white families, and the valuing of homes and equity is color-coded by segregation (Oliver and Shapiro 1995).
Segregation in labor markets, which are associated with different formal and informal social networks, is reflected in higher rates of unemployment and joblessness among racial minorities. Unemployment rates for both blacks and Hispanics have remained roughly twice the white unemployment rate. Among the factors contributing to high joblessness rates are selective recruitment and statistical discrimination, employer practices that reduce access to jobs for inner city applicants. These may involve limiting recruitment to selective neighborhoods, avoiding the placement of ads in central city newspapers, passing over applicants from black public schools, and subjective tests of job productivity (Wilson 1996, pp. 133–136).
Segregation and deprivation among blacks have been accompanied by criminal justice policies with impacts that are highly differentiated by race. “Racial profiling” by law enforcement associates particular racial and ethnic characteristics with dangers, risks, and threats. The federal Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 prescribes the same mandatory-minimum sentence for 50 grams of crack cocaine (a form of the drug more likely to be used by low-income blacks) as it does for 5,000 grams of powdered cocaine (a form more likely to be used by high-income whites) (Blumenstein 2001, p. 26). An individual caught possessing only 1 to 5 grams of crack cocaine is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison. Crack cocaine is the only drug for which there exists a mandatory minimum sentence for the first offense (Kennedy 2001, p. 15). More than 30 percent of black high school dropouts will go to prison at some time in their lives, compared to 10 percent of white male high school dropouts (Patillo, Weiman, and Western 2004). Among black males in their twenties, 30 percent were under the control of the criminal justice system—prison, jail, probation, or parole (Mauer 1990).
When U.S. integration policies were first adopted, race-based discrimination was officially recognized and black-white relationships were the primary focus of formal and substantive integration. Through the 1960s, the federal government and its civil rights agencies were expected to end legal segregation and discrimination. By the post–civil rights years, the goals of integration had expanded into a policy of diversity, which policymakers struggled to implement. While civil rights organizations have emphasized that integration programs should be sustainable and relatively enduring considering the long history of slavery and segregation, there is a growing tendency among politicians to view integration as a set of transitional programs that have “run their course” and are no longer necessary. New patterns of integration emphasize formal integration and are based on the principle of “colorblindness,” which argues that people should be treated as individuals and not as members of groups. By asserting that race does not matter, colorblindness as a principle and social policy denies the reality of continued discrimination. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, racial segregation and institutional discrimination persist in the United States despite the emergence of a colorblind society.
INTEGRATION IN CROSS-NATIONAL CONTEXTS
The philosophical bases for the adoption and implementation of integration policies in the United States may have been informed by similar attempts to promote racial and ethnic integration in other societies such as India, Brazil, Britain, and France. Integration policies in these countries have varied with respect to their emphasis on either formal or substantive integration, their articulation of race and racial discrimination (as distinct from ethnic and class discrimination), the role of the government and government agencies, and the demographic characteristics of racially and ethnically subordinate groups. Differences also exist regarding the question of whether such programs should be viewed as transitional or long-term.
India’s integration policy, the “reservation system,” grew out of the larger Indian struggles for home rule and independence, which had as one of their goals the elimination of the caste system. The Indian caste system, which existed for more than 2,500 years (up until 1947), was a status hierarchy and occupational stratification system with religious, color-based, and regional dimensions. Under the country’s constitution, the “reservation system” sets aside a proportion of all government jobs, seats in educational institutions with government funding, and electoral constituencies for persons from “scheduled castes,” “scheduled tribes,” and “other backward classes” (Deshpande 2005, p. 10). Because Indian integration policies are based on the constitution, they cannot be legally challenged. National minority status, rather than racial status, is the basis of assignment to one of the protected classes. Unlike the United States, integration is based completely on voluntary efforts. Greatest resistance to the integration of the “untouchables” has come from the highest castes, which are highly represented in the decision-making positions of government. Critics of India’s integration have emphasized that the poorest and outcast “scheduled castes” and “schedule tribes” are greatly outnumbered by the “other backward classes” and that the “quota system” has selected from the more privileged members of these underclasses and not the poorest. At the same time, many of the slots made available by the quota system go unfilled due to low levels of education, training, and preparation among low-caste groups (Sowell 2004).
Brazil’s integration policies have been constrained by a national ideology that views the country as a “racial democracy,” a self-perception supported by the absence of legalized racial segregation, substantial miscegenation and interracialism, and a constitutional provision of equality before the law. Until recently, race as an official category did not exist and public discussions of the “racial question” were officially prohibited. The ideology of “racial democracy,” which maintains that race does not matter, is intricately combined with an informal system of discrimination and a social hierarchy of color (or “pigmentocracy”), in which lighter skin is associated with greater prestige and economic status and darker skin is associated with lower prestige and poverty. Under the dominant cultural belief system, African ancestry or blackness was defined by the European elites as anti-Brazilian. Relatedly, among blacks the notion of a colorblind “racial democracy” has undermined the legitimacy of organized struggle and the development of collective consciousness, self-help, and uplift. During World War II and the postwar years, any possibilities of integration in Brazil were further thwarted by two major periods of authoritarian rule (1937–1945 and 1964–1985) (Nascimento and Nascimento 2001).
More recently, Afro-Brazilian activists have struggled to have the “racial question” recognized as a national issue and have demanded the articulation of specific public policies addressing racism. At the same time, the number of Afro-Brazilians elected to political office and in other positions of power has increased, though it is still very far from proportionate. Also, racism is increasingly coming to be viewed as a question of human rights. In the late 1990s, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso publicly denounced racism and began to introduce affirmative action programs for Brazilians of African descent. The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2002–present) created the Special Ministry to Promote Racial Equality and state universities in Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, and Minas Gerais began the policy of reserving vacancies for blacks and public school students. The Brazilian Congress has also introduced bills that mandate quotas for all public universities, government services, and television shows. The implementation of affirmative action policies in the universities has derived from the convergence of Afro-Brazilian struggles and new governmental policies.
In Britain and France, official recognition of race, ethnicity, and discrimination was virtually absent until after World War II. In both countries, the large-scale influx of immigrants from former colonies in the Southern Hemisphere led to a perceived need for integration policies.
British integration policies grew out of legislation that was initially designed to restrict immigration and depoliticize race. In response to the growth of West Indian and East Indian immigrant populations, in 1964 the Labor-dominated British government enacted legislation that both restricted immigration and encouraged integration (Bleich 2003, pp. 65–66). Four years later, a progressive coalition brought about the enactment of the more comprehensive 1968 Race Relations Act, which made discrimination on racial grounds unlawful in housing, employment, training, education, and the provision of goods, facilities, and services. This legislation established an administrative agency for race-related issues, structured access into British institutions, and widened protections against racism. Paralleling developments in the United States, the 1968 Act reframed issues of integration as issues of access. The British Parliament expanded the definition of discrimination from direct intentional discrimination to indirect discrimination, whether intentional or not, and laid out a soft form of affirmative action known as positive action (Bleich 2003, pp. 101–102). The Race Relations Amendment (2000) extended the coverage of the 1976 Act to all public institutions, with only a few limited exceptions. Since the 1976 Race Relations Act, movement toward increased access has been constrained by institutional changes—such as decentralization, which saw political power shift to the judiciary, local jurisdictions, and the bureaucracy—and, beginning in the 1980s, by a succession of conservative-led British governments that were not receptive to “race-conscious” policies addressing indirect discrimination.
France’s antidiscrimination policies derived from French memories of Nazism, anti-Semitic newspapers, and speeches by far-right demagogues. Protections against unequal access to employment and services were negligible. Focused largely on formal integration and “expressive racism,” French integration legislation introduced in 1972 criminalized racial defamation and the provocation of racial hatred against groups or individuals; outlawed discrimination in hiring, firing, and the provision of goods and services; and enabled the government to disband groups that seek to promote racism. Protections against unequal access to employment and services remain negligible (Bleich 2003, pp. 139–141).
French legislation conceived of discrimination as based on religion or ethnic or national origin—but not on race. France has a “colorblind” code that omits the word race. The government collects no census data relating to race and ethnicity, and in 1978 it banned race-based statistics. There is no public- or privatesector use of racial or ethnic data to estimate the status of minorities (Bleich 2003, p. 141). Although the immigration of North and West Africans has continued, and immigrants in France experience substantial economic inequality and segregation, structural discrimination and unequal access are not recognized in France’s integration policy.
SEE ALSO Affirmative Action; Anti-Semitism; Apartheid; Assimilation; Black Nationalism; Brown v. Board of Education, 1954 ; Caste; Caste, Anthropology of; Civil Rights Movement, U.S.; Crowding Hypothesis; Desegregation; Discrimination, Racial; Education, Unequal; Ethnocentrism; Ghetto; Great Society, The; Immigration; Jim Crow; Jingoism; Kerner Commission Report; Nation of Islam; Nazism; Quotas; Race-Blind Policies; Race-Conscious Policies; Racism; Segregation; Segregation, Residential; Segregation, School; Separate-but-Equal; Separatism; Voting Rights Act
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