Affirmative action is once again in the courts, and Penn State students had the opportunity to learn about it at as part of yesterday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service events.

Ken Lehrman III, director of affirmative action at Penn State, spoke to an audience of about 35 about the history and the implications of affirmative action in colleges and universities.

"Affirmative action is everywhere," Lehrman said. "And I have found that no matter what side of the political spectrum you are on, most people don't know what it is and what it attempts to accomplish."

Lehrman discussed affirmative action's 30-year history, as well as past court cases that relate to the upcoming Supreme Court cases involving the University of Michigan.

"Affirmative action is not special treatment or reverse discrimination," Lehrman said. He quoted former President Bill Clinton, saying that the purpose of affirmative action is to "finally address the systematic exclusion of people."

Lehrman explained the logistics of affirmative action policies. He said such programs are required for all federal employers and federal contractors. Penn State is a federal contractor, as are most public universities.

Many misunderstandings arise because people are not certain what these affirmative action programs entail, he said.

He said these programs require employers to compare the data on the ethnicity of the qualified people available for a specific position with the ethnicity of the people currently employed. These numbers do not have to match perfectly, but they should be within 80 percent, he said.

If they are not, the contractor must try to correct the problem.

For example, the number of minority faculty members at Penn State should be close to the overall availability of qualified minority members, Lehrman said. If this is not achieved, there is no penalty from the government as long as the contractor can demonstrate it has made "good faith efforts" to try to increase diversity.

Lehrman said the two Michigan cases concerning affirmative action programs, pending decision in June this year, will question two things.

"First, is the contribution diversity makes so important to the quality of education that it is a compelling reason to have affirmative action? And then, if the contribution is important enough, is the program [at Michigan] narrowly tailored enough that it does not discriminate against non-minority students?" Lehrman said.

He said the outcome of the cases depends on Michigan's ability to convince the Supreme Court that race is not the entire basis of admission.

"At Penn State there is no diversity quota," Lehrman said. "The key factor here is what contribution the individual can make to diversity."

Most affirmative action programs work this way, he added.

Students attending the hour-long speech said they appreciated the timeliness of the topic.

Matt Kucas (graduate-meteorology) said he went to Lehrman's speech because he was interested in the court cases.

"I understand what led up to the [Michigan] cases now," he said.

Bethany Snavely (junior-psychology) attended to learn more about affirmative action.

"I wanted to learn more about it, so I could either uphold a current opinion or change it," she said.