Getting rid of affirmative action will end up being bad for Idaho
The Southwest Idaho Chapter of the National Organization for Women vehemently opposes House Bill 440, which would eliminate affirmative action in state hiring and contracting.
I sympathize with Rep. Heather Scott’s point of view. I was born and raised in a rural logging community where I was splitting wood at the age of 8 and using a chainsaw by 10. My dad told me I could grow up to be anything I wanted because I was smart and strong. Growing up in my very white, rural community, I believed in the meritocracy.
I continued to believe in it when I was discussing how to improve my mediocre grades with my male math and science teacher, and he told me not to worry about it too much because “girls usually aren’t very good at math.” So I went on to get my college degree in English.
And that was the first step in the creation of an opportunity gap because I have since been denied promotions in my STEM field because, although I have experience and certifications, I do not have a degree in a STEM field. And I have plenty of privilege others do not enjoy.
Representative Scott fails to take bias into account. We all have biases, implicit and explicit, and humans have a very bad habit of hiring people who look just like them. I have personally watched men engage in amazing mental gymnastics to justify hiring another white male. And white men still hold most of the seats of power, both private and public, in our state.
Statistically, women in Idaho are 49th among the states for equality. We are near the bottom among states in hours worked, in salary, in the number of women in leadership positions, and in the number of women in government. We are dead last in women owned businesses. Numbers are even worse for women of color.
Today, I work for a Fortune 500 company that encourages diversity in hiring and has policies and guidelines in place to ensure that women and men earn the same salaries, and we actively encourage diversity on all teams because it results in those teams making better decisions.
Making no attempt to form diverse teams in state jobs is bad for Idaho. We will be less effective, less efficient, and we will not serve the people of Idaho well. The legislature should reject this ill-conceived proposal to roll back over 50 years of progress towards equality.
This story was originally published February 16, 2020 at 8:00 AM.