Social Science in Government Regulation of Equal Employment Opportunity

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Project Abstract: Social Science in Government Regulation of Equal Employment Opportunity This project describes and explains the use, non-use and misuse of economic, sociological, psychological and statistical knowledge and experts in equal employment opportunity-affirmative action (EEO-AA) law enforcement in the United States, 1965-present. Enforcement includes private and government litigation in federal court, formal and informal policies pursued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCC) and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice (CRD), and efforts by government actors, regulated social actors, lawyers and social scientists to change equal employment laws or policies. Results will provide the first systematic, over time account of how, by whom, under what conditions, with what consequences, and what kind of sociological, psychological, economic, statistical and other social science knowledge and experts have been mobilized in the EEO-AA regulatory arena. Research questions to be answered are: what actors and interests are served by expanding, contracting or otherwise changing the role played by social science and scientists in equal employment law enforcement? What conflicts over the role of social science have occurred within the equal employment law and policy arena? How have these been resolved? To what degree, how, under what conditions, and with what consequences has social science expertise succeeded in becoming institutionalized in the regulatory system absent, or in spite of, political attack? To what degree have counter-mobilizations against such expertise occurred? How and to what degree have such counter-mobilizations succeeded in reducing or banishing the presence or influence of particular types or uses of social science from the EEO-AA regulatory arena? These questions are generated by the project's politics of science explanatory framework, which proposes that variation in government use of social science results from variation in the specific confluence of conflicts among different types of actors, with different interests in, and resources for, promoting particular kinds or roles of social science in law making and enforcement. To accomplish its goals, the project collects in-depth interview data from social scientists, lawyers, politicians and policy makers involved in enforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pay Act of 1963. Analysis of interview data is combined with analysis of documents from government and non-government, public and non-public records. New findings about use of social science in equal employment law will be synthesized with the principal investigator's prior findings about use of social science in US labor-management relations law and antitrust law. Scholarly significance rests both on providing new data and findings about EEO-AA law, and on using these to improve more general theories of causes and consequences of government reliance on social science in advanced industrial democracies. This project also has broader impact. EEO-AA law has been at the forefront of US public debate. Because use of scientific expertise affects the nature, effectiveness and quality of policy debate and public programs, better understanding of the role of social science in EEO-AA law will contribute to improved policy making and policy outcomes, and, potentially, to improved social science itself.