Affirmative Action Needs Reform
The goal of affirmative action was not (or at least should not have been) to promote diversity.
The goal should have been to promote and ensure equality of opportunity for people regardless of
race, color, creed, gender or national origin. The system that has evolved since the civil rights
legislation of the 1960's is a misapplication of its original intent. Laws have been passed, quotas
have been established and seemingly, everything has been done to prevent discrimination, but
these new laws and quotas are only discriminating against a new group of people--the qualified
white male. The affirmative action system originally may have had a just intent, but I
sincerely believe it has been counterproductive in practice.
Affirmative action by design was intended to help minorities and women reach the same
levels of opportunity as the so-called majority, but in the process, reverse discrimination has
taken place. Graglia believes "affirmative action" has become simply a deceptive label for racial
preferences (31). This discrimination transgresses the basic American ideal that all people are
equal before the law and must be treated as individuals. With the mass media rarely recognizing
quotas much less portraying white males sympathetically, Peter Lynch, a sociological researcher,
states "white males have been silently victimized one by one" (qtd. in Brimelow and Spencer).
Now , in order to be employed, qualifications do not always matter as much as the color of a
person's skin or his ethnicity. Race and gender-based preferences have no place in an affirmative
action program. Race preferences were originally rese...
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Bibliography:
Works Cited
Brimelow, Peter and Spencer, Leslie. "When Quotas Replace Merit, Everybody Suffers."
Forbes 15 Feb. 1993: 80-102.
Carter, Stephen L. "Racial Justice on the Cheap." Elements of Argument Text 1997: 382-387.
Glazer, Nathan. "Race, Not Class." Elements of Argument Text 1997: 389-392.
Graglia, Lino A. "The Affirmative Action Fraud." Washington University Journal of Urban
and Contemporary Law (Summer 1998): 31-38.
Koch, Ed. "Be Fair to All the Disadvantaged." The American Enterprise (Nov/Dec 1998): 66.
O'Sullivan, John. "Preferences For (Almost) All." National Review 17 Apr. 2000: 22-24.
Zuckerman, Mortimer B. "Piling on the Preferences." US News and World Report 28 Jun.
1999: 88.
Affirmative action, while a great idea in the beginning, is no longer needed to make up for the past discrimination of women and minorities. It does not get rid of discrimination, but rather creates it towards whites and men. Any form of discrimination is wrong, whether intentional or unintentional. Businesses and universities will set aside a separate pool for minorities and women so they don’t have to originally compete against the whole pool of applicants. A person’s qualifications and how they got to where they are should not be questioned because of affirmative action. The only reason some people are still questioned or considered undeserving is because affirmative action still takes place. Getting rid of affirmative action in universities and businesses will eliminate reverse discrimination and ensure that their qualifications, along with achievements, will not be questioned based on the skin color or gender of a
Affirmative action, the act of giving preference to an individual for hiring or academic admission based on the race and/or gender of the individual has remained a controversial issue since its inception decades ago. Realizing its past mistake of discriminating against African Americans, women, and other minority groups; the state has legalized and demanded institutions to practice what many has now consider as reverse discrimination. “Victims” of reverse discrimination in college admissions have commonly complained that they were unfairly rejected admission due to their race. They claimed that because colleges wanted to promote diversity, the colleges will often prefer to accept applicants of another race who had significantly lower test scores and merit than the “victims”. In “Discrimination and Disidentification: The Fair-Start Defense of Affirmative Action”, Kenneth Himma responded to these criticisms by proposing to limit affirmative action to actions that negate unfair competitive advantages of white males established by institutions (Himma 277 L. Col.). Himma’s views were quickly challenged by his peers as Lisa Newton stated in “A Fair Defense of a False Start: A Reply to Kenneth Himma” that among other rationales, the Fair-Start Defense based on race and gender is a faulty justification for affirmative action (Newton 146 L. Col.). This paper will also argue that the Fair-Start Defense based on race and gender is a faulty justification for affirmative action because it cannot be fairly applied in the United States of America today. However, affirmative action should still be allowed and reserved for individuals whom the state unfairly discriminates today.
Affirmative action programs may or may not have been appropriate in times past where inequalities were prevalent and programs to build diversity were mandated. In the United States today, where law bars discrimination, I feel employment opportunities should be based on merit and not on race, sex or any other preconceived notion. Actively recruiting candidates that do not meet minimum requirements or standards is counterproductive to any agency that strives to serve the public in an efficient and effective manner and further erode confidence in government.
Fryer, Roland G. Jr., and Glenn C. Loury. 2005. "Affirmative Action and Its Mythology." Journal
The author questions the fact, whether African American men are actually criminal threats or victims of society. “Black men are typically constructed as criminals when in truth they much more likely to be victimized by American Society” (BMCV, pg. 1). The adage of the adage. Most fail to realize that African American men can commit crime, but they also can be victims of crime, and a majority of the time they are the victims. Another idea he questioned is, why are more African American men considered to be perpetrators of crime rather than victims?
Today there is considerable disagreement in the country over Affirmative Action with the American people. MSNBC reported a record low in support for Affirmative Action with 45% in support and 45% opposing (Muller, 2013). The affirmative action programs have afforded all genders and races, exempting white males, a sense of optimism and an avenue to get the opportunities they normally would not be eligible for. This advantage includes admission in colleges or hiring preferences with public and private jobs; although Affirmative Action has never required quotas the government has initiated a benefits program for the schools and companies that elect to be diversified. The advantages that are received by the minorities’ only take into account skin color, gender, disability, etc., are what is recognized as discriminatory factors. What is viewed as racism to the majority is that there ar...
I wholeheartedly agree with Richard Rodriguez that the approach of affirmative action based on race was misguided and that a race-blind approach to affirmative action would yield the desired objectives of equality among the American population. Race-based affirmative action results in biased favoritism which brings up a new form of discrimination in the name of alleviating it. It is because of this rising discrimination in university admissions that made me feel the full effect of the existing policies on affirmative action in the U.S.
We could quit here, but it is also worthwhile to address the point that critics of affirmative action thought they were making with this example. And that is that it's wrong to deny top jobs to the most qualified in the name of racial fairness.
The original intent of affirmative action being set in place was to ensure that people would be employed or accepted as students without concern of their race, color, gender, or national origin. According to Munguia (n/d), race was not meant
From the article, Davis’s main argument is that the mainstream society has developed the perception the black men are to blame for the
However, affirmative action attempts to solve the problem in the wrong way. Instead of lowering the standards for black individuals the government should aim to eliminate the
Imagine waking up tomorrow and reading in the local paper that the government was giving tax breaks to minorities in order to prevent discrimination. Congress insists that the deductions will “help level the playing field” in American society, claiming that diversity is necessary in creating an ideal nation, but is this attempt to prevent disparities and racism not an act of inequality in itself? By putting this policy into place, the government is giving advantages to minorities without showing the same generosity to Caucasians of the same economic backgrounds. Protests would be taking place around the country as citizens argue that the plan violates their Constitutional right to equality. Yet this is exactly the type of scenario seen in universities across the country. Colleges use race as a large factor in admissions in order to create “optimal diversity” among the students. However, this attempt at variety often comes at the expense of white and Asian students. For these reasons, affirmative action policies in college admissions should be eliminated in the United States.
Many feel that affirmative action has gone too far and is an example of reverse
First and foremost, I come from a minority group. I am I minority in two ways. Not only am I Hispanic, but I am also a woman. Although, affirmative action arises from the concern for “righting the wrongs of the past” it still applies to this time and year. Affirmative action was developed to remedy past acts of discrimination. All public and private sectors that receive federal funding are to participate in the hiring of underrepresented groups through a preference system (book). Those who are not of a minority group of who’s family members have never been discriminated against would find this law to be unfair to them. For example, both a fourth generation American and a 2nd generation Hispanic apply for the same job. They apply at a public
Action sets standards for a business or office of admissions, so that a white man does not