Affirmative Action: Griggs V. Duke Power Company

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.

The government should not repeal the affirmative action. Affirmative

Affirmative action means advancing gradually to eliminate discrimination, to prevent its reversion, and to offer new opportunities that before were repulsed to women and minorities. While recent studies have demonstrate that reverse discrimination is sporadic, sometimes employers use illegal preferences or quotas, usually an unwillingness to prepare an appropriate affirmative action plan or out of ignorance. Former President Johnson confessed “We seek…not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and a result.” Griggs v. Duke Power Company case is relevant for this argument. The plaintiff in Griggs’s case argued that the high school diploma and testing requirements discriminated against African-Americans and thus violated Title VII. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously against the intelligence testing practice of the Duke Power Company. The Supreme Court decision secures that employees may challenge not only overt discrimination but also job-selection procedures that are irrelevant to quantify job capability. In addition, according to the Cindy Hounsell (2002) report, “Women in U.S., on average, earn 72 cents to every dollar earned by men. In her lifetime the average women loses $523,000 due to wage disparities. Since 1987 women owned businesses have increased by 103 percent. In 1999 women owned almost 9 million businesses, employing more than 27 million

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