Are equal opportunity employer and affirmative action mutually exclusive?

You are absolutely right. Either you are a equal opportunity employer or you are an affirmative action employer....they are no where near the same thing. I think everyone reguardless of race, gender , etc... should all have the same opprotunity at a job. Not special consideration given to anyone.

An employer should hire who they believe will do the best job regardless of gender or race. Another laughable thing is when they tell you you're over qualified.

Things work better when you have the more qualified perswons doing the job! For instance if we have a health emergency, do we want the more qualified worker involved or the one the company thought they should hire for political reasons.. No they are not the same at all.

That is a good showing of why affirmative action is destructive. If we are truly offering a equal opportunity, then race and gender should not matter at all. But hiring women and other minorities offers tax write offs.

"All are equal, but some are more equal than others" That is the sort of bigotry that is at the heart of all EO and affirmitive action scams.

Because white males have an unfair advantage because we are viewed as naturally smarter and better qualified than any other groups. Therefore they need affirmative action to level the playing field for the unqualified who obviously would not be hired otherwise. This is just another example of Liberalism in action.

It's even more blatant down here in south Florida. "Bilingual preferred". Let's see, I'm an American citizen, qualified and experienced with great references but I'd be wasting my time even filling out an application because the only language I speak is English?

Hi taskr, Yes I agree that some of company have weird policy in choosing new applicants for vacancies and I think if it is about gender or race maybe they have something that they want from that. You know maybe they think that jobs more suitable for some gender. If we can look most of the receptionist are women and maybe this scenario has come up the idea that women is more suitable for receptionist than men. Um, that just my thought only and maybe there are other more relevant reasons for your problems.

It's crap, that's what it is. You are either qualified to do the job or you aren't, anyone who uses standards outside of that such as race or gender is practicing DISCRIMINATION and violating the stuff about Equal Opportunity IMHO.

It's such a sticky sort of situation. I pretty much agree with you, though. I think the most qualified applicant should get the job. I feel like preferring women, minorities, or whatever, is like doing the wrong thing for the right reason. Of course the intenions are good, but it may not be for the best. It's unfair for the qualified people who don't get hired because of race or gender, and I think it's also weird for people who get hired specifically for that. Like, if I felt I was less qualified and only got the job because of a reason like that, I think it would make me uncomfortable. Of course, employers also shouldn't be preferring white men, but I'm not sure affirmative action or similar policies are necessarily the best.