The insistence on business sense and quality has become central to companies' defense of their diversity policies against critics.
Although Barr says most people find the efforts acceptable and Littlejohn says he has "rarely if ever heard the comment that [a minority] is underqualified," polls reveal a country increasingly frustrated with racebased programs.
Seventy-five percent of Americans oppose racial preferences and two-thirds want to "change" affirmative action programs, according to a 1995 Washington Post/ABC poll. U.S. News and World Report found that 51 percent of whites say equal rights have been pushed too far. Likewise, Littlejohn says a segment of the majority population still needs to be convinced of the "business case."
Other critics, Business Week reports, accuse companies of simply hiring minorities to avoid lawsuits such as the discrimination complaint 10 black Merrill Lynch employees filed with the National Association of Security Dealers in 1993.
Harvard students report a divided response on campus to minority recruiting and the use of agencies like Crimson and Brown.
Cohan says he believes many subtly question the system.
"But for many there is a realization that it is compensation for some disadvantage in other areas," he says.
"I guess some non-minorities wish there were a similar service for them," says Ho, since Crimson and Brown provides minorities with an extra opportunity others do not have.
"There is definitely some hostility from the other side," Cohan agrees. As with affirmative action in college admissions, he says, "There is a certain feeling that minorities are stealing a white person's spot."
But Crimson and Brown founder and Managing Director John Kim '87 says the agency does not engage in any sort of equal opportunity drive. While it encourages diversifying work forces, it does not preach.
"The companies that come to us are [already] an extremely dedicated bunch," he says.
Crimson and Brown does, though, have a vision of a more equal society, and this ultimately supersedes its business concerns--and, Kim hopes, those of the companies who are his clients.
"Eventually we should put ourselves out of our jobs," he says.