Johnson Aide Sees Hiring Negroes As Profitable Policy for Corporation

"In its own self-interest, the corporation had better become an activist in getting equal job opportunity for Negroes," Clifford Alexander '55 said at the Business School yesterday.

Addressing about 200 students and professors at the Public Affairs Forum, the Negro lawyer, who is an Administration troubleshooter for Civil Rights, emphasized the profitability, rather than the morality, of equal opportunity hiring policies.

He noted that economists have estimated that $27 billion are wasted annually by discriminatory employment. The figure equal 3.7 per cent of the United States' GNP.

Alexander said that the legal instruments which the Federal government now has at hand only affect hiring practices in a small segment of the private economy.

"There is an increasing dependence on the Federal government to eliminate discriminatory hiring," Alexander said. "Unequal opportunity will be a long time less there are people in the private sector who go beyond the letter of the law, in coming."

Sophisticated Excuse

"Corporations any that they would like an Instant Negro, but that they can't find him," Alexander said. He called this complaint a "sophisticated excuse" for ineffective methods of recruiting personnel.

A member of the audience asked Alexander whether the Negro executive wasn't "the hottest commodity on the job market today." Alexander answered. "He is the hottest commodity only for the Exhibit A jobs, not for the substantive jobs. There are too many Negroes with Master's Degrees in the Mail Room."

He told the group improved education on all levels is necessary if the potential skills of the Negro are going to be realized.

Alexander's official title is Assistant Special Counsel to President Johnson. When he was at Harvard, he was the first Negro president of the Harvard Student Council and the Negro permanent class president.