Affirmative action back in the spotlight
More than a decade after his death, Arthur Fletcher's contribution to American society is embroiled in controversy.
In 1969, this civil servant laid the blueprint for affirmative action as applied by the first Republican administration to accept it. As Nixon's assistant secretary of labor, he implemented the Revised Philadelphia Plan, which required companies to make efforts to hire minorities and women in order to receive federal contracts in naval shipping yards.
In the years that followed, the
