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Employment equity and affirmative action are laws designed to aid people from the four designated groups to increase their representation in the work force, these four groups are: women, aboriginals, visible minorities, and people with disabilities. These laws are in place to ensure diversification of the workforce with people from different backgrounds and views. These laws were not created to give anyone from the designated groups an advantage in the hiring process but to remove any systematic barriers to the historically disadvantaged groups. These laws are not new and have been constantly changing over many years and there have always been misconceptions about them. Employment equity and affirmative action are not forms of discrimination, but often people misinterpret them to be reverse decimation when someone from the designated group gets a job or promotion over them. Before getting to the ethical issue, how these laws were formed and evolved is important in regards to why Employment Equity and Affirmative action are not reverse discrimination.
These laws were implemented for the first time around the 1970’s, both laws progressing in
The program introduced a one in five hiring goal for visible minorities to help diversify the workforce. Any complying company can receive funding for reaching the benchmark. The initiative eventually stops receiving money and was shut down because the benchmark goal was not achieved. To answer some of these diversity shortcomings, the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights began to study the extent in which minorities were being discriminated against and how close they were to reaching their goals in 2004. A few years later they released their findings that employment equity was not where they wanted it to be and released recommendation on how employers could engage in more diverse practices in the
Affirmative Action Question: Newton and Wasserstrom seem to disagree about whether affirmative action is a form of reverse discrimination. Explain how each arrives at their position about whether or not affirmative action is similar to or different from discriminatory laws of the Jim Crow era
After long years of suffering, degradation, and different sorts of discrimination which the disadvantaged group of people had experienced, the “Affirmative Action Law” was finally passed and enforced for the very first time on September 24, 1965. The central purpose of the Affirmative Action Law is to combat racial inequality and to give equal civil rights for each citizen of the United States, most especially for the minorities. However, what does true equality mean? Is opportunity for everyone? In an article entitled, “None of this is fair”, the author, Mr. Richard Rodriguez explains how his ethnicity did not become a hindrance but instead, the law became beneficial. However, Mr. Richard Rodriguez realized the unfairness of the “Affirmative Action” to people who are more deserving of all the opportunities that were being offered to him. Through Mr. Rodriguez’s article, it will demonstrates to the reader both favorable, and adverse reaction of the people to the Affirmative Action, that even though the program was created with the intention to provide equality for each and every citizen, not everyone will be pleased, contented, and benefit from the law.
First of all, the establishment of affirmative action after the Civil Rights Era of 1960s promoted the thinking of reverse discrimination. Defined by Dictionary, reverse discrimination is “the unfair treatment of members of majority groups resulting from preferential policies, as in college admissions or employment, intended to remedy earlier discrimination against minorities” (Dictionary.com). It is true that women and peop...
In my opinion, it is important for private and public organizations to adopt and implement programs and laws to overcome the challenges in a diverse work environment. One of the laws that organizations follow are Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972. Equal Employment Act of 1972 prohibits discrimination of employment on the basis of race, color, nation, origin, sex, religion, age, disability, political , beliefs , and marital status. Another law that
“Anyone interested in higher education should want to contemplate, on behalf of colleges and universities, students and faculty, alumni and paying parents, the fate of affirmative action(Chace, M William 20). The Oxford Dictionary states Affirmative Action is “an action or policy favoring those who tend to suffer from discrimination, especially in relation to employment or education; positive discrimination.” In 1961, John F. Kennedy signed an Executive Order calling for “affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” This is now known today as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission(EEOC). Affirmative action policies would later be forced upon businesses and have also been instituted at many universities where minorities are given preferred admissions over non-minorities. An Example of this would be at the University of Michigan where applicants who represented racial or ethnic minorities were given 20 points towards admission out of a 150 point system where only 100 points were needed to gain admission. Trying to put the 20 points in perspective, applicants with perfect SAT scores only received 12 points toward admission. This system was later struck down by the Supreme Court, but another similar policy was upheld at the University of Michigan Law School. With how diverse our society is currently compared to years ago, it seems to compliment that the policies have indeed worked. But now, the policies are questioned by many as whether or not they moral, constitutional, and/or...
Institutions in the businesses sector are swarming in racial discrimination, much of which is covert and difficult to detect and prove. Racial discrimination excludes, marginalizes and exploits those citizens who are discriminated against, ceasing any opportunity for economic progress and development. Under certain regulations some businesses are required to diversify their workplace by hiring certain amounts of people of color, but in reality these small quotas do not do much for the overall condition of the people who are being discriminated against. Businesses that fail to take action on racial discrimination tend to have lower levels of productivity. This stems from employees not being interested in working hard, or because people with exceptional talents and skills choose to shy away from certain places of employment due to the fear of racial discrimination. Employees who feel wronged also tend to switch jobs, forcing the organization to spend more time and resources on hiring and training new employees, besides coping with the low productivity of a new employee. (Nayab)The effects of racial discrimination in the American work force could be identified with funded research on the topic. With ample data employers will be able to better understand the negative affects that racial discrimination have
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, affirmative action is “an active effort to improve employment or educational opportunities for members of minority groups and women.” However, despite its well-intentioned policies, it has been the source of much controversy over the years. Barbara Scott and Mary Ann Schwartz mention that “proponents of affirmative action argue that given that racism and discrimination are systemic problems, their solutions require institutional remedies such as those offered by affirmative action legislation” (298). Also, even though racism is no longer direct, indirect forms still exist in society and affirmative action helps direct. On the other hand, opponents to affirm...
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission mission is to enforce federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against anyone applying for employment opportunities. Discrimination will be leading to major problems in the next few years, which could cause poverty, violence, and crime. Discrimination cases are having large payouts, but the cases being are not decreasing in large amounts. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is not living up to its mission because the discrimination cases being filed are increasing in the 21st century.
Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines affirmative action as "an active effort to improve the employment or education opportunities of members of minority groups and women." Some of the other areas of emphasis are age, religion, and ethnic origin. I feel the same as the authors of the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, when they said these laws were brought about because,
The issue of affirmative action has been a controversial one since its inception. The law was developed during the 1960’s as a result of the civil rights movement and the need to address injustices committed against minorities throughout the United States history. There were multiple attempts to correct the inequities between the majority and the various minorities including the 13, 14 and 15th Amendments. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 allowed for the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to create rules to end discrimination. Affirmative action came into being with the executive order 11246 issued by President Johnson. The Civil Rights Act and President Johnson’s executive order have been updated throughout the years to address gender, disabilities, age and other characteristics that could be considered discriminatory.
Equal Employment Opportunity means freedom from discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, color, national origin, disability and age. Affirmative Action plans define an employer’s standard for proactively, recruiting, hiring, and promoting women, minorities, disabled individuals and veterans (SHRM, 2012). EEO, Affirmative Action: Equal Employment Opportunity is to ensure employee’s performance is high and the overall goals of the organization are being met. Affirmative Action and EEO are regulations that help ensure fair actions and opportunities are given in the workplace. Employees who receive equal employment opportunities are much more focused in the workplace, which is geared toward achieving the goals of the organization. Embracing
Social inequality, an issue that has been debated many times throughout the years, has discrimination, racism and sexism. Since people have to deal with this every day, social inequality seems like it will never disappear. However, society believes that their answer to solving this problem has been created, which is Affirmative Action. The purpose of affirmative action is to acquire more diversity and to control the basis of racism in America. This idea is to represent equality for women and minorities who work and are attending universities. For example, when applying to universities, they always ask about your ethnicity, depending on what race you are, you have the upper hand of getting into the school. This is how Universities are trying to bring more diversity and affirmative action is a great idea. However, looking at the sociological attributes to the idea of affirmative action, it does not seem like it is the best way to handle social inequality. In order for affirmative action to truly be a success in society, there are three aspects that need to be analysis: functional analysis (functionalism), conflict theory, symbolic interactionism. Through these three aspects, the advantages and disadvantages of affirmative action will be shown.
Affirmative action or positive discrimination can be defined as providing advantages for people of a minority group who are seen to have traditionally been discriminated against. This consists of preferential access to education, employment, health care, or social welfare. In employment, affirmative action may also be known as employment equity. Affirmative action requires that institutions increase hiring and promotion of candidates of mandated groups. (Rubenfeld, 1997, p. 429)
Throughout the years the United States has faced many challenges with equal employment opportunities for everyone. The United States has developed The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, also known as the EEOC, to enforce laws that help prevent everyone from being treated unfairly when it comes to employment options. The EEOC has established stipulations and overlooks all of the federal equal employment opportunity regulations, practices and policies (“Federal Laws Prohibiting Job Discrimination Questions and Answers”). Some laws that have been passed are the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. Although some discrimination is still a problem, all of these laws have helped the United States citizens become treated more equally in the work force.
According to Corley, Reed, Shedd, and Morehead, (2001) “the most important statue eliminating discriminatory employment practices, however, is the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act o 1972 and the Civil Rights Act of 1991.” The appropriation section o...