Problems with Affirmative Action Essay - 737 Words

Affirmative Action For many years, people have presumed that Affirmative Action has played and continues to play a vital and important role in the lives of most minorities . However, some people have raised questions about the effectiveness of Affirmative Action. Since its conception, it has been believed that in some instances, Affirmative Action has been more harmful then helpful. One may ask the question, is Affirmative Action really worth fighting for? Some may argue, that if it had not been for Affirmative Action, the minority unemployment rate would be much higher. Like any program, Affirmative Action has its flaws. One major downside occurs when employers over look ones credentials and hires people solely on the†¦show more content†¦Taking Affirmative Action away from minorities would be equivalent to setting the African American race back a hundred years. At the same time, using Affirmative Action as a crutch as opposed to a stepping stone, will also aid in the decli ne of minorities, in the work force and everywhere else. In the United States, promoting diversity in the workplace is becoming virtually impossible. Laws such as Tile VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the fourteenth Amendments were both created to protect the American people from discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, religion, sex and color. However; Affirmative Action was created to encourage diversity on the basis of race, creed and color. The real problem is created, when job employers do not apply enough strict scrutiny to the hiring process. The lack of strict scrutiny being applied to the hiring process makes it easy for an employer to cross the thin line between discrimination and equality. What I mean by this is, when an employer decides that he or she needs to create a more diverse working environment, the employer may tend to hire a person, strictly on the basis of color and not so much on their merit and ability to handle the job at hand. Unless an employer can prove that the person he or she has hired is more qualified for the position than one of the applicants that was turned down, then he or she is liable to be faced with a case of reverse discrimination. If we take a look at TitleShow MoreRelated Affirmative Action Essay787 Words   |  4 PagesAffirmative action- a plan to offset past discrimination in employing or educating women, blacks etc. (Websters New World Dictionary.) nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The history of affirmative action has its roots in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and stems from the United States Supreme case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas. In 1965, President Linden B. Johnson issued Executive Order #11246 at Howard University that required federal contractors to undertake affirmative action toRead More Affirmative Action Essay1503 Words   |  7 Pages Affirmative Action is defined by Websters New World College Dictionary as a policy or program for correcting the effects of discrimination in the employment or education of members of certain groups. The phrase affirmative action was coined by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 when he issued Executive Order 10925, initiating the Presidents Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11246. This order required federal contractors toRead More Affirmative Action is Not the Answer Essay843 Words   |  4 PagesAffir mative Action is Not the Answer      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Created in the 1960s, affirmative action programs attempted to undo past racial discrimination by giving preference to blacks and other minorities.   The idea behind these programs was to help minorities gain the representation in the job market that paralleled their percentage of the population (Finley 1).   Unfortunately, affirmative action has mutated into a thirty-year-old policy that places many underqualified minoritiesRead More Affirmative Action Is the Wrong Action Essays1708 Words   |  7 PagesAffirmative Action Is the Wrong Action The United States of America has long been a country divided by race. Hate has pervaded her existence since her conception, and now today’s society is forced to deal with those issues. 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Each person has their own idea of what affirmative action really entails. This paper will provide an overview of the legal aspect of affirmative action. The differences between affirmative action programs and equal opportunity legislation will be explained. The positive arguments will be presented along with the negative arguments. The affects affirmative action has on the society of the United States will be analyzed. Finally the reactionsRead More The Ineffectiveness of Affirmative Action in Establishing Diversity1394 Words   |  6 PagesThe Ineffectiveness of Affirmative Action in Establishing Diversity People generally agree that diversity is beneficial to college campuses. In 1978, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court decided that race could be used as a factor in deciding college admissions - setting a precedent for the use of affirmative action (Lane A1). Justice Lewis Powell, who belonged to the majority opinion, cited diversity as the primary reason behind his decision. He acknowledgedRead More Affirmitive Action Essay1106 Words   |  5 Pages Affirmative Action is the name given to programs that try to correct past and ongoing discriminations against women, racial minorities, and others in the work force and in education. The principal goal of Affirmative Action is to create more diversity and equal opportunities in jobs or schools that used to be all or mostly male, white, or both. Affirmative Action programs have been in place only a little over thirty years. Affirmative action works. There are thousands of examples of situations whereRead MoreAffirmative Action- Negative Team1486 Words   |  6 PagesModule 03: Group Position Paper: Affirmative Action Affirmative Action: Negative Team 1 Diversity in the Workplace Professor Linda Noeth Center for Distance Learning SUNY Empire State College Slavery in America can be traced all the way back to colonial times, or as historians have dated; 1619. Although slavery had technically been abolished by the late 1800’s, issues over race still remained prominent. Regulations such as â€Å"Jim Crow Laws†, that claimedRead MoreAffirmative Action vs Reverse Discrimination Essay1614 Words   |  7 PagesAffirmative Action or Reverse Discrimination Colleen Koehn Business Law 1038 Instructor Jackie Sexson March 1, 2010 South University Online There has been a large debate in recent years if affirmative action has gone against the American way, has affirmative action caused reverse discrimination? The establishment of affirmative action was put into place to create equal rights for racial minorities, ethnic minorities, women, the physically disabled and those who served in the military