Jayson Blair Quotes

I think it's worth putting energy into affirmative action in terms of having diversity in positions of power because the door was shut for so long.

Since governmental quotas expand bureaucratic power, provoke a backlash and are unfair to individuals, we need to find a better way to increase minority opportunities.

We've heard the excuses from those responsible for hiring that they don't want to take a chance on a new director. But the truth is that the industry hires new directors all the time; it's just that most of them are white males.

Most often, qualifications are defined by the credentials of the person who last held the job. If that is to continue to be the litmus test, white males will continue to be the top choice on any list, if the interviewer is also a white male.

I am an affirmative action hire.

I support affirmative action. I support special measures when you need it.

Affirmative action works but we're going to need to muster all our political resources if we are to keep it in place.

I suspect that it would be impossible to arrange an affirmative action program in a racially neutral way and have it successful. To ask that this be so is to demand the impossible.

I don't believe in college admission or any other venue that we should pick one race or sex over another in college admissions. My philosophy and reaction is that I would not support a program that by race or status alone elevates someone over another in a competition of sorts.

If you're not hiring from some groups of the population, then you're obviously missing out.

I think that affirmative action programs can be very important.

Advocating for affirmative action through the prism of diversity may be more politically palatable, but it will inevitably yield insufficient results.

When you surround yourself with white people, you continue to hire white people, and when you make an effort to hire people of color, that does bring in different stories and different people.

I was making big paintings with mythological themes. When I started painting black figures, the white professors were relieved, and the black students were like, 'She's on our side.' These are the kinds of issues that a white male artist just doesn't have to deal with.

When it comes to meritocracy and diversity, the symbolic is real. And that means that simple actions that reduce bias, such as blind resume or application screening, are a double win: they reduce implicit bias and they help communicate our commitment to meritocracy.

Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them.

I'm always excited when I make it on anyone's list - even if it's for affirmative action. My attitude is, 'Am I the token woman on this list? Because I'll take it.'

There are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action - to try to balance out those effects.

Affirmative action was never meant to be permanent, and now is truly the time to move on to some other approach.

As somebody who has been an executive producer on a television series, I can tell you that increasing director diversity is as simple as hiring more women and more people of color.

It would be ridiculous for me to say anything negative regarding blacks having an equal opportunity on TV.

The third fallacy is that affirmative action doesn't work.

What is so remarkable about the success of affirmative action is that it has been accomplished despite the Justice Department and the policies of the federal government.

Affirmative action is under attack today, not because it has failed, but because it succeeded.

I am working for the time when unqualified Blacks, Browns and women join the unqualified men in running our government.