Affirmative Action: A Counter Productive Policy

By definition, racism is the discrimination of prejudice against race. Discrimination, by definition, is treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than on individual merit. In 1961, when President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10.925, he was indicating that individual businessmen should take affirmative action to ensure applicants and employees are treated “without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” His executive order implied equal access and nothing else. The system that has evolved since is a perversion of the original intent of affirmative action. The stipulations that make up affirmative action today are too narrow to effectively help in the fight against racism and discrimination.

Affirmative action has the capability of causing reverse discrimination. Discrimination against white males is just as bad as discrimination against any minority. Some people say that affirmative action is justified as a way of making up for past discrimination. Although discrimination still exists in the United States today, as it does in the rest of the world, most African Americans entering the job market today, were born after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Because of this, most African Americans have suffered little or no oppression in terms of slavery. When the Civil Rights Act was passed, its spirit was not one of reverse discrimination, but of getting employers to consider applicants candidly in filling jobs within their companies. Hubert Humphrey, a major sponsor of the Act, was quoted during a 1964 interview swearing that he would “eat the bill if it were ever used for discrimination of any sort.” Yet, it has promoted just that, discrimination. The past cannot be changed, and society should stop compensating people who were never hurt at the expense of people who have done them no harm.

This unwarranted discrimination bothers most employers as well as most employees who do not qualify for affirmative action. The employers feel they have ended up with a lesser quality worker, because of unfair and unwanted employment regulations. Here is yet another disadvantage of affirmative action, namely that every employee from a social minority that benefits from affirmative action can bear a mark of not being the best pick, but only the best pick from a limited group, even if the person is selected for being the best available on the complete job market. The bypassed employees can feel tricked by the government or the minority.