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Affirmative Action Argumentative Essay

487 Words2 Pages

Affirmative action in colleges is based on a good idea, but needs heavy reform. The system used right now in many colleges is far too reliant on race, where socioeconomic background is much more important. In its current state the system is just too race-exclusive and easily taken advantage of by an outlier. Some prestigious schools accept students who are essentially set up for failure. It seems that the term “affirmative action” is most often used synonymously with “race”. The ties that we as a society make between race and class are ancient: and not without warrant. According to the federal safety net; “While the poverty rate for the population as a whole is 13.5% the rate varies greatly by race. Blacks have the highest poverty rate at …show more content…

Relying so much on race allows someone who does not need help being admitted reap the benefits of affirmative action. This seems reminiscent of another ridiculous benefit; Legacy scholarships, where the student receives an extra boost for being born into the right family. (Although legacy scholarships do have a more damaging effect, since a higher percentage of recipients are wealthy, especially at prestigious universities.) One reporter, an Asian American who didn’t qualify for the medical school of his choice, was accepted into said school by pretending to be black. Here are his thoughts. “A popular belief is that affirmative action always benefits the disadvantaged. In my application to medical schools, I fully disclosed my affluent background and that I did not receive a penny of financial aid as an undergrad. Yet, [as a black man] schools offered me special treatment. Did they think that every black kid comes from ‘the hood’? This form of racism assumes all blacks and Hispanics were broke and needed help. The irony is that there are legions of legitimately disadvantaged Asian Americans and whites left behind by affirmative action…. Affirmative action works, sort of. But it’s flawed, discriminating against some for the benefit of others. Affirmative action needs to be changed, so it works for all who truly need it, regardless of race or color. How much more American can that be?” (Vivay Jojo Chokol Ingam, Affirmative

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We have seen in the past four decades race-based affirmative action programs that have arisen and fitfully developed through judicial challenges. As in most case, the best of intentions do not always lead to positive outcomes. Nothing could be more apt in describing the perilous position we have bestowed upon millions of minority students who have been admitted to higher learning institutions under the auspices of diversity. As illustrated by the standardized test and GPA numbers in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the students admitted to the medical school of UC-Davis under their affirmative action policy were extraordinarily less qualified when compared to the student body as a whole. This not only unfairly displaced white and Asian students who would have otherwise been admitted to those spot on merit but also places those underperforming students in an environment in which they are destined to fail.

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Critics of affirmative action frequent describe the policy as being unfair, asserting that it contravenes a conserved system of meritocracy in the country by basing selection decisions on demographic characteristics at the expense of ability and achievement (Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 1997). Defenders take a different position that can be explained by two facts: racism and sexism are still present in the United States society and affirmative action is the most efficient and effective way of reducing discrimination than the present alternatives. However, affirmative action increases fusion and fairness in employment and in education because it works as a proactive observing system. As Crosby and Smith (2005) consider, “such policies may help ensure that patterns of bias—including selective system bias— are uncovered and

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Affirmative action in the United States I believe that affirmative action negatively affects on both minorities and majorities. From a minority’s perspective, the idea that minorities can receive benefits from others due to their race, ethnicity, or gender can cause them to feel segregated against anyway. Since the term, ‘minority,’ no longer applies to every females or person of color today, female students or students of color with affluent backgrounds may feel segregated and devalued even when they did not get any special benefit from affirmative action policies. Majorities, in this case, male or white students, will also get discouraged because this can be regarded as a form of reverse discrimination, especially with racial affirmative action programs.

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In his article “Affirmative Action in Higher Education: Is It Necessary?” , Rodney Reed debates the necessity of affirmative action as a critical measure in the fight against discrimination in higher education. In order to stress this conviction, he does not eschew the usage of strongly biased diction and argument. Firstly, on page 333 Reed states that “in [his] view, affirmative action is a series of positive steps” and that “[his] concern is with Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans”, where he does not conceal that this is his perspective and not necessarily the truth.

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The Book of the Dead was a collection of spells and characters collected on a papyrus roll. The papyrus roll was put inside an empty statue, or at times wrapped inside the mummy wrappings, and put in the tomb with the various things which the dead individual would require for life following death. The spells and descriptions in the Book of the Dead gave a dead individual the learning and power they expected to travel securely through the threats of the netherworld (a place the dead went promptly after death). They likewise talked about a definitive objective of each antiquated Egyptian – endless life.

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The article I will refer from is “From Jim Crow to Affirmative Action and Back Again: A Critical Race Discussion of Racialized Rationales and Access to Higher Education” by Tara Yosso. Affirmative action in education was set up because it would give minority groups access to higher-education. However, this article discusses that minorities still have a problematic time getting into higher education schools. This was an issue in Brown vs. Board of Education, which stated education should be equivalent to everyone (Yosso, 2004). Not everyone agreed with this idea.

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On the Paradox of Affirmative Action Inequality has pervaded American society throughout history, and it continues to invade the lives of young Americans in the form of affirmative action. Affirmative action, a process in which colleges favor minorities and other disadvantaged groups, fails to serve its intended purposes: to compensate for historical discrimination. Worse, it creates aptly named reverse racism, wherein the majority has a disadvantage. Affirmative action also has a goal of creating diversity, but diversity includes more than race; moreover, the importance of equality vastly dwarfs the importance of diversity, though the two are closely entangled. Despite benevolent intentions, the institution of affirmative action policies

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“Affirmative Action may not be a perfect system, but there should be no doubt that it has endangered many successes. It has opened the doors of America’s most elite educational institutions to minority students, granting them unprecedented opportunities” (Ogletree 12). Thanks to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson a policy that prohibits employment and education discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, and sex is offered today to those who suffer from said discriminations (A Brief History). Affirmative action has opened abundant openings for minorities, allowing the cycle of going to college to be passed down generations and provided job opportunities that otherwise would not be considered by most. Affirmative

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In the multitude of court cases concerning the issue the court has conceded that schools are allowed to give more weight to race as long as they consider others. If we take this to the extreme, schools could devise an admissions program to mostly consider race and brush over other factors. If we continue to make race such a crucial part of the admissions process it will become increasingly harder to cut those ties. In Grutter Justice O’Connor urged the point that affirmative action would have to have a logical endpoint. If the court and society continue to allow it to progress at the current rate affirmative action may become permanent.

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With knowledge about America’s extensive history of racial tensions, discrimination, and segregation, however, this appears to be an appropriate method of academic assistance and equality in regards to college admissions. The nationwide affirmative action program based on race appears to be a fair and reliable method of college admittance; however, there remain slight discrepancies, like a potential for reverse discrimination, which cannot be ignored. Proponents on all sides of the academic spectrum agree that using a different criteria for college admissions, socioeconomic status, could prove to be the better option in keeping with the promotion of diversity while establishing reasonable boundaries for the number of admitted students (“Socioeconomic Status” 79). Similarly to how Affirmative Action in college admissions currently gives advantage to students of ethnic minority, affirmative action will begin to give advantage to students who live in families of low socioeconomic status. Additionally, this new criteria will serve the core values of promoting diversity, equal opportunity, fairness, and the elimination of discrimination in college admissions.

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Many supporters of race-conscious admissions argue that without considering race as a factor, many groups of underrepresented minorities won’t have the chance to continue onto higher education because of their lack of resources, as compared to the wealthy and privileged white applicants. However, this is based on stereotypes. In “The Atlantic” article, “The Affirmative Action That Colleges Really Need”, the author states, “The current framework of race-based preferences…disproportionately helps upper-middle-class students of color, and pits working-class people of different races against one another…Research by the economist Raj Chetty shows that…Seventy-one percent of Black, Latino, and Native American students at Harvard come from college-educated homes with incomes above the national median; such students are in roughly the most advantaged fifth of families of their own race,” (Kahlenberg). What this shows is that in reality, there are families that come from underrepresented backgrounds who are still just as privileged because of their social class. Stereotypes create flaws in the system by giving minority students the boost they do not need instead of giving it to the lower class students that actually do, which includes minorities and the majorities alike.

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Proponents for race identification would argue that, ending race identification on college applications would cause “profound implications for the higher education leaving universities and graduate schools with a mass number of Caucasian students”(Cite). Removing affirmative action will only decrease diversity in the work force and universities leaving the majority of college campuses with the upper echelon. Proponents strongly believe in diversity and enhancing student’s exposer. That’s is why some university’s especially the University of California at Berkeley school of law are big supporters for affirmative action. When this university noticed a decrease in African Americans and Latinos admitted they thought affirmative action was the

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Affirmative action is one of the obvious reasons why colleges consider race or ethnicity when making admissions decisions. Another reason is because a student’s college experience is enhanced through interactions with other students that come from different social, cultural and economic backgrounds. It also can help prepare students for their professor careers and life outside of school. But there is also a concern that colleges basing admissions on race may be passing up equally or more talented students for the sake of reaching a goal.

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The fear is that without this policy, diversity will not always happen if left up to chance. It is true that schools and other organizations have discriminated against women and people of other race. This problem created an unfair advantage for males of the superior race. Supporters also charge that without affirmative action African Americans would have a more difficult process of being admitted into prestigious and predominately white universities (Hopkins, 2010). Affirmative Action allows minorities to reflect different areas of study and work that otherwise would have never been considered.

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Throughout many of the affirmative action legal cases, one of the main arguments from proponents is that it is necessary in order to right the wrongs of past racial discrimination. Some say that affirmative action is justified because even though white applicants may be more qualified, this is only because they did not face the same hardships as their minority counterparts (Rachels, Ethics, 1973).  Many argue if we do not integrate disadvantaged minorities into mainstream social institutions, they will continue to suffer the discrimination that has plagued our country for centuries and that this is detrimental to not only the minorities but also society as a whole (Anderson, 2002, 1270–71). However, the debate has recently shifted to the benefits of diversity in the classroom which the Supreme Court has affirmed as being a positive thing

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