Definitions/Glossary
Affected Class: any group of employees or former employees who are members of a protected group that has suffered or that continues to suffer the effects of unlawful discrimination.
Affirmative Action: specific actions taken by the institution designed to eliminate the effects of past discrimination in regard to admission of students, special programs for disadvantaged students, as well as recruitment, hiring, or promoting employees.
Affirmative Action Plan: a written plan conforming to Executive Order 11246 in which an institution analyzes specific problems and identifies areas in which members of protected groups are underutilized. In those areas, the institution must set specific goals and timetables to eliminate this underutilization.
Affirmative Action Program: a generic name referring to the entire institutional affirmative action effort of which the written Affirmative Action Plan is one part.
Annual Goal: a yearly target expressed as both a number and a percentage, for hiring minorities or females into a job group for which underutilization exists.
Applicant Pool: all candidates who have applied for a job, during the period the job was open, from whom a person is selected to fill the position.
Business Necessity: if institutional practices adversely affect members of a protected group, the institution must be able to demonstrate that the practices challenged are essential to the institution and that no alternative nondiscriminatory practice exists.
Bona-Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ): is a qualification based on sex, religion, or national origin, which is reasonably necessary to normal operation of a business.
Disparate Treatment: discrimination by which an employer treats certain people differently because they are women or members of a minority group. Comparative evidence, statistical evidences, and direct evidence of intention to discriminate may be used to prove Disparate Treatment.
Equal Employment Opportunity: administering all terms and conditions of employment without regard to age, color, handicap, national origin, race, religion, sex, disabled veteran's status or marital status.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC): the federal agency mandated to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967.
Goals and Timetables: numerical projections the institution makes as part of the Affirmative Action Plan; refers to the representation of minorities and women in job groups in which they have been underutilized. Goals and timetables are not quotas.
Job Title: the particular name or classification of a job.
Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP): the office within the U.S. Department of Labor which is responsible for the administration of Executive Order 11246 and its implementing regulations, such as Revised Order No. 4.
Protected Class: any group, or member of that group protected by the anti-Discrimination laws on the basis of race, sex, age, color, handicap, national origin, religion, or Vietnam veteran status, disabled veteran's, and marital status.
Reasonable Accommodation: alterations, adjustments, or changes in the job, workplace, academic programs, and/or term or condition of employment which will enable an otherwise qualified handicapped individual or disabled veteran to participate or to perform a particular job successfully, as determined on the individual circumstances. Also refers to adjustments made by an employer to accommodate an employee whose religious beliefs forbid working certain days and hours.
Systemic Discrimination: employment or admission policies or practices which, though often neutral on the surface, serve to differentiate or to perpetuate a differentiation in admission to the institution or in employment of applicants or employees because of their race, color, religion, sex, national origin, handicap, or veteran's status. Systemic discrimination normally relates to a recurring practice rather than to an isolated act of discrimination, and may include failure to remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination. Intent to discriminate may or may not be involved.
Underutilization: a disparity between the employment of members of a racial, ethnic, or gender group in a job or job group and their availability. Underutilization is determined by conducting an availability analysis.
Utilization Analysis: an analysis conducted by an institution to determine whether minorities and women are employed in each major job group at a rate consistent with the availability of qualified minorities and women in the relevant labor market.
Workforce Analysis: a listing of each job title as it appears in payroll records, ranked from highest paid to lowest paid within each department.
*"Affirmative Action in Higher Education - A Source Book"
by Lois Vanderwaerdt
