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Arguments for and against affirmative action
Affirmative action thoughts and essays
Arguments for and against affirmative action
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In Adarand v. Pena, Adarand challenged a federal program that provided incentives to employers that employ individuals that are “economically and socially disadvantaged” (Alexander 149). Adarand, a subcontractor provided the lowest bid for a job, however due to the federal government’s financial incentives the contract was awarded to Gonzales, who was certified as a disadvantaged business. The Court in Adarand held that strict scrutiny should be applied to affirmative action or remedial programs that was based on race because similar arguments in previous case laws recur, such as “skepticism of race-based classifications” and “position on the question of benefits vs. burdens or race neutrality”(Alexander 150).
Katznelson’s argument that affirmative action policies were enacted with purposeful, deliberate discrimination is convincing. Namely, he considers the historical context that would have shaped Americans at the time and swayed their opinions. For example, Katznelson references the Civil War and the end of slavery, and how these events shaped the attitudes of key players like the Southern Democrats, which would then result in the faulty policies that perpetuated affirmative action’s favoritism of whites. His evidence is sufficient as well. Katznelson highlights the trend of Southern Democrats interfering in affirmative action policies and the footholds they had in specific acts.
Erica Beckman Duran English 1A 28 October 2015 Affirmative Action In Chapter Seven of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? , Beverly Tatum discusses affirmative action, an action that guarantees equal opportunity to all individuals, regardless of any circumstances (117). Tatum remarks on the history of affirmative action, in which it was introduced to language and our legal system by executive order 11246 by President Lyndon B. Johnson (1965), and obligated federal contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, religion, sex, or national origin” (116-117).
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.
Shelby Steele’s perspective about affirmative action is that it’s didn’t help African Americans achieve equality. Continuously, he believes that affirmative action only reinforces the misconception that people should be treated differently according to their outward appearance. Affirmative action is created to improve opportunities for minorities in employment and education. Like any legalization, affirmative action has positive and negative sides, however I disagree with Shelby Steele that negative effect on minorities. In our country, we have decades of racial, economical, and social inequality for minorities, and affirmative action tries to address that disparity.
Herbert Hill strongly believes we should adopt a strong affirmative active action policies that mandate quotes and/or timetables. He also argues there must be some benchmark, and some tangible measures of change. Hill states a system based on race existed for many generations under the U.S. Constitution. This system defined black people as property not as human beings. In the Dred Scott Decision of 1857, Chief Justice Taylor declares that black people have not rights and they are just articles of merchandise.
In doing so, Buckley’s magazine lent strength to the tradition of American prosperity, a tradition which in the 1970’s was enduring nearly its greatest trial. In time, and due in no small part to NR’s leadership, prosperity would once again assume its place as the American norm—one of the boon developments of our age and one of the greatest consequences of the conservative revolution. (Domitrovic p. 34) Historian Robert Alan Goldberg wrote in his biography, The Conscience of a Conservative, which built upon Buckley 's work at National Review that in many ways the state had an obligation to maintain order and promote integrity and methodically harmonized the differences between traditionalists and libertarians.
Wait you're saying there are still is racial inequality in schools! ( according to the article Worsening unchecked segregation in k-12 schools)Yes it's true there still is and it's not just happening in 1 school but many. And it's not fair they don't get the same amount of materials and resources as the white kids do.
This debate fought a discrimination with the doctrine of “separate but equal” (Gale). It explains how the Jim Crow impacted of the debate on affirmative
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a significant step in striving to end discrimination in the United States, and is arguably the most important piece of legislation ever passed in history. Title VII covers discrimination in the workplace based on race, color, religion, national origin and gender. In this essay, I will discuss discrimination based on race, because I believe that racial discrimination is still a widely known predicament in not only the workplace, but in many other aspects as well. This section prohibits an employer from refusing to hire, compensate, promote, terminate or train an employee based on that employee's race, and it also prohibits those acts against a person that is associated with a different race ("Facts About Race/Color Discrimination").
Affirmative action has become obsolete in today’s society. Affirmative action is an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women; also: a similar effort to promote the rights or progress of other disadvantaged persons (Merriam-Webster, 2011). Today’s affirmative action will demoralize the very concepts that the policy was implemented to uphold: those of equality for all people regardless of color and discrimination. This policy supports racial multiplicity at the price of distinction, impartiality and experience; it also follows the line of reverse discrimination and sexual bias against white men (Reyna, Tucker, Korfmacher, & Henry, 2005).
Weak affirmative action which is just an effort to ensure that all qualified minority groups are considered whereas the strong one is when some sort of preference is given to the minority candidate. Later the author concludes that he will focus on the strong affirmative action because it is the most controversial one. Then the author gives us many arguments of different people and critics for and against affirmative action. Later on, David Boonin gives us his own arguments in favor of affirmative action which are 1) the unfair disadvantage argument; 2) the (other) compensation argument; 3) the appeal to diversity; 4) the need for role models; 5) the bias-elimination argument; 6) race as a qualification. “I conclude that while affirmative action may prove to have some desirable features and some beneficial consequences, there’s no reason to believe that it’s morally obligatory.
Affirmative Action is defined by “an action or policy favoring those who tend to suffer from discrimination, especially in relation to employment or education”. Results of affirmative action have been seen by almost everyone. In America, affirmative action had been first created by an executive order signed by President John F. Kennedy in the year 1961. This order required that government employees “... ensure that they are... treated without regard to their race, creed, color or national origin” (hg.org). Affirmative action was expanded in the year 1965, promoting equal employment opportunities and it was again expanded, this time to include women, in the year 1967 when the class of “sex” was added to the “list of protected categories” (hg.org).
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
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once had a dream in which he calls for an end to racism in the U.S. and calls for civil and economic rights. So much has changed since then, but there are still problems that are in the process of being solved. When a person treats a group differently because of that group 's religion, it 's unfair. For a character who has different beliefs, it should not address them the right to criticize another individual. Nowadays, humans judge other humans by the way there features stand out.
