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Examples Of Affirmative Action

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Wollstonecraft Group
Jose Gonzalez, Rosario Velasco & Cecil Vermule III
Affirmative Action
Kirkpatrick Signature Series
Bellevue University
February 7, 2016

Affirmative Action

What is Affirmative Action? According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “Affirmative action policies are those in which an institution or organization actively engages in efforts to improve opportunities for historically excluded groups in American society” (NCSL, 2014). This was an important and necessary movement developed to contest the discrimination against minority groups, mainly African American and women. Affirmative action policies mainly affect the process of unemployment and education, to make sure that everyone has an equal opportunity …show more content…

Even though we have seen examples of the same behavior through world history, we will keep the focus on our own American history. Starting with the Native Americans,

they suffered and sadly could not endure the cruelty and abuse from the Spaniards when they first arrived to the new world. To mention one example of the sort of treatment the native Indians encountered, according to Howard Zinn, “The Spaniards thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades” (Zinn, 2008). The fear of being taken was by the Spaniards was so overwhelming the Native Americans subjected themselves to mass suicides with cassava poison and they even killed their own infants to “save them from the Spaniards.
When the Indian population was almost completely vanished by slavery, torture and murder, the Spaniards brought in their replacements, the African slaves. From slavery to segregation, the black population has been one of the most affected, and the oppression and inhumane treatment …show more content…

Procedures had to be implemented so groups that historically have been excluded or unrepresented group, to include minority groups and women, could have the equal opportunity of employment and education that would facilitate their pursuit of happiness as everyone else. Even though they were necessary, these procedures have been scrutinized and criticized by many for years. Affirmative action forced employers and higher education institutions to either assigned quotas or goals for the number of minority individuals they will accept or hire. On one hand, this system guarantees that a number of minorities will get employed and go to school, but it also limits that number. For example, if an employer needs to hire 20 employees, and there is a quota in place that mandates that 10% of employees need to be African American, 10% Hispanic and 10% women, then that employer could possibly meet the minimum quota of minorities and not hire anymore because he is covered, therefor still discriminate in a way that is legal. Another downside to this quota system in the employment side of things is that it could cause a form of reverse discrimination. If an employer has a position to fill and the best applicant does not meet the quota needs at that time, meeting the quota would take precedence over qualifications. Didn’t Martin

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583 Words | 3 Pages

In 1598 Juan de Oñate and his men killed nearly two thousand Native Americans from the Acama Pueblo in retaliation for the death of eleven of his men. They then cut off one foot from every one of the men of fighting age in the two hundred men, women, and children that he spared. Some Spanish conquistadors had very little respect for the lives of the Natives. To many of them they were nothing but savages inhabiting land that they felt could be put to better use. While many Spanish explorers and priests came to the Americas with the intention of “helping” the Natives, whether or not the Natives ended up better worse off, some Spanish did truly have the mission that they wanted to make the Native’s lives better.

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773 Words | 4 Pages

Slaves and free blacks had the worst experiences out of all minority groups. Slaves contributed the most to America’s economy, but they reaped the least benefits for their hard work under their white planter oppressors. Auctioneers ripped children out of their mother’s arms and husbands away from wives, splitting families apart. Some people tried to send slaves to Liberia in hope of clearing the population, yet this practice ceased due to the increasingly low numbers of participants giving slaves away. White males kept free black away from work and travel to ensure their own chances of attaining jobs.

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1786 Words | 8 Pages

When people think about affirmative action, the first thing that comes to their mind is positive discrimination. That is not quite right. Affirmative action is necessary in order to achieve equal opportunity, especially in the fields of higher education and employment. Affirmative action should not be banned or regulated because it gives women and people from ethnic and social minorities the chance of obtaining the job they want or studying at the school they choose. Affirmative action is very important system to our society and employers should dedicate all their resources to ensure that people are not discriminated against on the basis of their ethnic group or their gender.

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1036 Words | 5 Pages

There are many stories out there, each with a message for its readers. Finding these messages and their deeper meaning is referred to as a literary theory. An example of this is in The Scorpio races, Puck Connely risks her life just to get some money so her older brother Gabe won’t move away. The reader will see throughout the story that kate tries to keep a relationship with her brother, train for the races, and deal with the hardship of being a woman riding an ordinary horse in a made-out-to-be men’s race. The story represents the rags to riches, leaving family, and the heros journey archetype.

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987 Words | 4 Pages

Thus, often without realizing it, the United States has practiced what, in effect, was white affirmative action on a highly generous and widespread basis, followed by a much more modest program of black affirmative action. By understanding this history, we can come to terms with the widening gap between blacks and whites noted by Lyndon Johnson and with the incapacity of many blacks to be able to make good this gap in the following four decades (Katznelson,

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508 Words | 3 Pages

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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576 Words | 3 Pages

Valeria Cazares Mr. Villalobos U.S History 17 February 2023 U.S. History Final How Have The Native Americans Been Treated Over Time? Could They Have Avoided Conflict? Throughout United States history, Americans have treated Native Americans as unequals and forced suffering on Native Americans. Native Americans were subjected to countless massacres and cruel treatment that could have been prevented.

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845 Words | 4 Pages

Implying that this only discourages minorities and puts them in situations where they can not reach their full potential. Both arguments make very good points, yet they seem to miss the big picture, which is that the benefits of affirmative action outweigh the downsides

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1480 Words | 6 Pages

Since the very group of words “affirmative action” is in total contradiction with the amendment fourteen which guarantees people equal protection under the law. But coming to affirmative action, we have to remark the sad history behind it, which is once again to disadvantage a group for another one. Therefore we can clearly say that affirmative action is not only illegal but it is also unconstitutional since it violates clearly the fourteenth amendment. Not only that, we need also to notice that affirmative action goes against this American ideal which is equal opportunity, the ability for someone to use whatever wealth and/or talent he/she has to reach his/her fullest potential. Due to affirmative action, we will notice down in the paper how affirmative action prevents people to use their fullest

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505 Words | 3 Pages

Through this, people coming from groups that had experienced discrimination were going to be recruited for jobs and education. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who opposed to it because they considered this action as an unfair quota

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347 Words | 2 Pages

Abortion in Australia is a subject of state law rather than national law. The grounds on which abortion is permitted in Australia vary from state to state. In every state, abortion is legal to protect the life and health of the woman, though each state has a different definition. In Australia it is 1 in every 4 baby’s don’t survive pregnancy, with over 80,000 women wanting abortion every year.

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1383 Words | 6 Pages

The effects of slavery are still felt around the world today. In some countries, society treated the majority of people of African descent as second-class citizens up until the 21st century, and many argue that this still occurs today—with police brutality providing damning data showing that prejudice remains ingrained into society. In 2015, 40 percent of the unarmed people shot by police were black men, despite the fact that black men make up just 6 percent of the nation’s population (Lowery 1). Between 1525 and 1866 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World, however, historians estimate that only 10.7 million survived (Gates 1). These 2 million deaths are contributed to deplorable living conditions and savage masters.

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1045 Words | 5 Pages

"You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say you are free to compete with all the others, and still just believe that you have been completely fair.” Said President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 (civilrights.org) while the civil rights movement was at its peak. Ever since then affirmative action has been used to give “equal” opportunities to people who belong to a minority. According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Affirmative action means “positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and culture from which they have been historically excluded.” (Fullwinder, 2001) But when does

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1011 Words | 5 Pages

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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1734 Words | 7 Pages

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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