“Affirmative action is not about quotas. It’s an attempt to open more opportunities for women and people of color through aggressive recruitment and outreach greater access to academic institutions and the workplace and not exclude people on the basis of race or gender.” (Holhut3) Actions or policy favoring those individuals who are subject to discrimination particularly in relation to employment or education is called Affirmative Action. Although affirmative action is not necessarily a form of equal treatment it is a form of fair treatment. Programs that attempt to break down the wall of segregation that excluded racial minorities and women from workplace and education include quotas, minority scholarships, reverse discrimination, preferential hiring and diversity have all been linked to affirmative action.
In the 1960’s racial tension reached a peak in the United States after a decade of civil rights demonstrations. On September 24, 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order #11246 at Howard University that required federal contractors "to take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed…without
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As recently as December 2015 the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Fisher v. The University of Texas at Austin. Texas has gone back and forth on how they handle affirmative action with college admissions. A federal appeals court banned affirmative action at the larger universities in Texas in 1996, that decision was then reversed by the Supreme Court in 2003. The Fisher v. University of Texas case was originally heard by the Supreme Court in 2012 and was sent back to the lower court for review. This case will end up determining whether the University of Texas can consider race as an admissions factor. Affirmative action in college admissions was never meant to be permanent but minority representation on large public college campuses is still