I'm 71 and can remember my dad telling me in the 60's about an aerospace company in Akron having to hire minority machinists. And then training them to be a machinist dealing with 4 decimal points. Totally idiotic!
I was an affirmative action case/example you could say, myself
(some may call it a victim, I don't consider myself a victim of anything)
I even trained my replacement, to be an engineers aide
he didn't have any drafting or mechanical drawing experience, at all
he did do very good measurements & notes for line drawings
very detail-oriented, followed instruction very well, a good employee
but;
we had worked together on & off for about 2 years
I got him the job in SF too, we both started out in GC dept.
(General Construction Dept., before transferring to Corp.)
he was a great engineers aide,
assistant, my assistant
but not qualified as I was
the guy was pretty cool, he was about 10 or so years older
very prompt & always on time & has a couple of kids
(I was still single)
But; IMO it wasn't him, it was the company, pushing quotas...
He was black...
That didn't make any difference to me, he was/is a good man
he was still my friend, we got along very well, even after
knowing it was coming...
I'm White, of mostly German Norwegian descent,
my family has been here since 1697...
It was obvious, why...
This was like 1979-80, affirmative action was all the craze...
(before it was considered reversed for, non or unconstitutional bias)
My B-I-L Frank/Taco (of Mexican descent) helped me find the job
I already had worked within the company
He was the Lead Engineer of my dept.
I was org. his engineering aide
he didn't give me the job
But;
I was steered to the HR lady, applied & I was well qualified, so I got it...
I was at the bottom of the totem pole in seniority & experience
in the SF office
I was fresh out of school/college,
even IF I had worked for the company for a longer time
a couple of summers in powerplants
& was better qualified to do the job of engineers aide...
I ended up going back to GC dept. in the powerplants
& moved on completely about a year later, from that
I went on to bigger better things...
It pushed me to do my own thing, so it was sort of a blessing...
after getting the shaft a couple of times, by corporate
But I was involved in it up to my teeth...