Affirmative Action - Public Opinion vs. Policy

Affirmative Action - Public Opinion vs. Policy

When Justin Ketcham, a white college student from the suburbs, thinks about

affirmative action, he thinks about what happened when he sent out letters

seeking scholarships so he could attend Stanford University after being accepted

during his senior year of high school.The organizations that wrote back told him

their money was reserved for women or minorities. To Americans like Ketcham,

it's a matter of fairness. The average white male will claim that it's not fair

to attempt to rebalance scales by balancing them the other way. Students like

Ketcham are also more likely to claim that affirmative action is a program

geared towards curtailing workplace prejudices that really don't exist

anymore.But when Hillary Williams, a black insurance company manager from the

inner-city, thinks about affirmative action, she thinks about the time she had

to train three consecutive white male bosses for a job that no one even

approached her about filling. To her, it's also a question of fairness.

African-Americans like Hillary feel that there is just no other was besides

affirmative action to level the playing field in certain businesses.And so the

disparity in public opinion begins. A racially-divided America creates separate

groups, which "Affirmative Action issue taps a fundamental cleavage in American

Society" (Gamson and Modigliani 170)--each with their own view of affirmative

action on different sides of the line. Government attempts to create policy

based upon the voice of the people but affirmative action seems to present an

almost un-solvable dilemma. Traditionally, it had been a policy that was

greatly scrutinized for its quotas and alleged unfairness towards Blacks, but at

the same time it had also been praised for its inherent ability to help

minorities gets jobs they deserve but could not obtain otherwise. So how do we

reach a "happy medium" so-to-speak? In American political culture, it appears

as though individualism and egalitarianism are values that find themselves on

opposite ends of the political battlefield.

In a complex world of political ideology and political culture are sets of

values and principles that are widely endorsed by politicians, educators, the

media and other opinion leaders that make up the definition of what is to be

American (Feldman and Zaller). Some favor the values of individual freedom,

especially individual economic freedom, over other values, especially equality

and popular sovereignty (egalitarianism). These people are labeled Conservatives.

The other side of the spectrum consider themselves as Liberals (Feldman and

Zaller).Because we live in a meritocracy created by the strong forces of

capitalism, there is a tendency for people to fall behind either in the economy

or in the academic community.