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Affirmative Action Advantages

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As a topic of conversation that has consumed American politics for decades, affirmative action has served as America’s letter of apology to minorities that have faced such harsh discrimination through the years. Affirmative action serves as a historical turning point in the United States, and has closely addressed the issues that race, class, and gender minorities have faced for centuries. However, there is immense controversy that comes with the idealistic concept of affirmative action. While many researchers find it to be beneficial, others view this concept as erroneous.
According to Saint Leo University, affirmative action was introduced to the United States around 1965. Its purpose was to combat racial discrimination and employment. As …show more content…

It describes affirmative as an active work in progress, aiming to improve the quality of life of those belonging to a minority. The National Conference of State Legislatures refers to the purpose of affirmative action as, “efforts to improve opportunities for historically excluded groups in American society. Affirmative action policies often focus on employment and education” (Hultin, 2014). Institutions of higher education aim to make the college admission process an equal process for all, regardless of race, class, and gender (Hultin, 2014).
After providing a basic definition for the concept of affirmative action, the National Conference of State Legislatures provides a thorough description of the historical background of the concept. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, affirmative action is an outcome of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s. The idea first arose nationally in 1961 when President Kennedy used the term in an Executive Order which established the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, which is now referred to as the Equal Employment Commission (Hultin, …show more content…

Board of Education decision to outlaw school segregation in 1954. By 1965, only five percent of undergraduate students were African American, and President Lyndon Johnson was no longer able to tolerate this issue. Therefore, he signed an Executive Order, which according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “required government contractors to use affirmative action policies in their hiring to increase the number of minority employees” (Hultin, 2014). According to the article, Affirmative Action, Race or Class?, President Nixon took Johnson’s actions a step further. He directed government agencies to provide contractors with information regarding the percentages of minorities in the local labor market. While this was not a requirement, those who agreed with Nixon’s request were offered an advantage in the bidding process. In 1972, affirmative action laws were extended outward to local, state, and federal governments. These policies still cause heated debate today

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There were acts before it that helped lead to the development of the one in 1964. They all addressed the similar issues, but obviously if there had to be more created than the ones that were initially created did not accomplish their goals. Two of those acts in particular were the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and 1960. These acts dealt primarily with voting rights. Unfortunately not contained in these acts were policies and practices that would eliminate discrimination in public accommodations or employment.

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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.

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By arresting Plessy it indicated that whites had more benefits and privilege than blacks, but in 1954 Brown vs. Board of education decided to change the law banning racial

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In the autobiography Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez the author employs the theme of higher education to defend his views on affirmative action. He shares his views and experiences on the issue as a minority alienated in a majority white American society in the 1960’s-70’s. Although he was a well–educated Mexican American, his ethnicity classified him as a minority. In college, despite being anti-affirmative action, Rodriguez still reaped the benefits of affirmative action. He believed that affirmative action should not be not be determined by race, but student’s intellectual ability to complete college.

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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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Is affirmative action still necessary for guaranteeing equal access to educational opportunities at elite universities and graduate schools? Should admissions decisions be based solely on academic criteria and merit? Key Words: affirmative action, Grutter V. Bollinger, and diversity. Grutter V. Bollinger Research Paper 3 Affirmative Action in Education Affirmative action was formed more than fifty years ago.

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Trough out the 1960, the goal for racial became priority for many Afro-Americans who suffer from segregation or also called Jim Crow. After the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision in 1896, all Afro-Americans will need to obey the law that stated separation of facilities or known as “separate but equal”. Since the 1900s, association like the NAACP fought for the equality in education, politics and economy in America between the races, in 1960 the nonviolent propaganda became a way to stop the segregation and start living as the constitution stated, with equality and freedom (Document 1). In 1954 the famous Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall won against segregation when there was a concern about

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Although the roots of this movement date as far back as the 1900s, the legacy of the African American’s role in World War II sparked the catalyst needed to promote the legislation that eventually led to their equality. “On May 17, 1954, The Supreme Court announced its decision in the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka” (Brinkley 772). This regulation overturned the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in the Plessy V Ferguson case. The separate but equal doctrine was a prime example of domestic policy that did not uphold the government’s constitutional promise to promote the general welfare of society-to include all that fall under the definition of an American citizen. The affliction put on children who had to travel to segregated public schools placed an unequal burden and damage done to those who it pertained to.

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Board of Education helped to fuel the civil rights movement. This led to the creation of affirmative action policies in higher education. In the years following the Brown decision, there was a push for greater diversity and inclusion in higher education (History.com, 2023). This led to affirmative action policies, which aimed to increase the representation of underrepresented groups, including racial minorities, in colleges and universities.

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The Equal Opportunity Act of 1964 was the most progressive act since the reconstruction. Although not intentionally, many blacks were intimidated after winning these new rights. They were intimidated not to go to the workplace, voting, or schools. In all, the law did succeed in it’s plan to integrate and eliminate segregations. It succeeded because it was a law that finally went in favor of the ones fighting for equality.

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As the author highlights, “The first paragraph of the act states as its purpose "To enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the Attorney General to institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and for other purposes. " To explain, how the act shows equality with the nation striving to secure equal rights and opportunities for all its citizens and the act provisions directly confronted the entrenched systemic discrimination prevalent at the time challenging the status quo and shaping the trajectory of civil rights in America. The writer accentuates, “The bill prohibited racial discrimination in public and outlawed discrimination in places of employment. To this end, the act created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate complaints of discrimination. The act ended the piecemeal strategy of integration by ending Jim Crow once and for all.”

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Institutionalized discrimination refers to the unfair, indirect treatment of certain members within a group. Usually, the bias targets specific, easily stereotyped and generalize attributes, such as race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, and age. Although the United State law forbids direct discrimination and it’s illegal, countless academics, activists, and advocacy organizations assert that as far as they are concerned, indirect discrimination is still persistent and ongoing in the vast majority of our social institutions and as well in our daily social practices. Such institutionalized discrimination includes laws and decisions that reflect racism, for example, the 1896 case between Plessey vs. Ferguson. The case that was ruled in favor of the “separate but equal" public facilities between African Americans and non-African Americans by the U.S. Supreme Court, however, the ruling was rescinded by the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954.

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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).

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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.

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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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