Top 3 Reasons Affirmative Action MUST be Changed
Affirmative action is the nation's most ambitious attempt to redress its long history of racial and sexual discrimination. But these days it seems to incite, rather than ease, the nation's internal divisions. An increasingly assertive opposition movement argues that the battle to guarantee equal rights for all citizens has been fought and won. Favoring members of one group over another simply goes against the American law. Defenders argue modest advantages to minorities and women is more than fair, given hundreds of years of discrimination that benefited whites and men.
Originally, civil rights programs were enacted to help African Americans become full citizens of the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution made slavery illegal; the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law; the Fifteenth Amendment forbids racial discrimination in access to voting. The 1866 Civil Rights Act guarantees every citizen "the same right to make and enforce contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens ... "
In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which outlawed segregationist hiring policies by defense-related industries, which held federal contracts. Roosevelt's signing of this order was a direct result of efforts by Black trade union leader, A. Philip Randolph. During 1953 President Harry S. Truman's Committee on Government Contract Compliance urged the Bureau of Employment Security "to act positively and affirmatively to implement the policy of nondiscrimination . . .(add.English)."
The actual phrase "affirmative action" was first used in President Lyndon Johnson's 1965 Executive Order 11246, which requires federal contractors to "take 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 (now.org)."
In 1967, Johnson expanded the Executive Order to include affirmative action requirements to benefit women. Other equal protection laws passed to make discrimination illegal were the Civil Rights Act, Title II and VII of which forbid racial discrimination in "public accommodations" and race and sex discrimination in employment, respectively; and the 1965 Voting Rights Act adopted after Congress found "that racial discrimination in voting was an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of the country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution (now.org)."
The debate over affirmative action takes on a particularly bitter tenor in the trenches. "Angry white men" blame affirmative action for robbing them of promotions and other opportunities. While many minorities and women support affirmative action, a growing number say its benefits are no longer worth its side effect: the perception that their success is unearned. Judging simply by the results, the playing field would appear to still be tilted very much in favor of white men. Overall, minorities and women are in vastly lower paying jobs and still face active discrimination in some sectors. The real question is, at this point in our nation's history, does affirmative action make things better or worse? Affirmative action is “Born of the civil rights movement three decades ago, affirmative action calls for minorities and women to be given special consideration in employment, education and contracting decisions.”(Washingtonpost) It is clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. So how by any means is it right to give any race preferential treatment? In the1978 Bakke case, the deciding opinion held that discrimination against whites is every bit as illegal and unconstitutional as discrimination against blacks, except that just a little of it would be okay. A state medical school could not, therefore, simply set aside a number of seats for blacks and other racial minorities, but it could count an applicant's minority race as a "plus factor" in granting admission. The result was to initiate a fraud that has since been practiced by probably all leading institutions of higher education in the country, and certainly by the University of Texas School of Law.
Recently, The UT Law School has practiced "affirmative action" in admissions in order to obtain an entering class that would be about 5 per cent black and 10 per cent Mexican-American (add.English). The school is highly selective: in 1992, the whites it admitted had an average LSAT in the 93rd percentile and a median college GPA above 3.5. If these admissions standards had been applied nonracially, the entering class would have had very few blacks or Mexican-Americans, probably less than 1 per cent. The school, therefore, simply established a separate and lower set of admissions standards, according to which self-declared black and Mexican-American applicants are in effect automatically admitted with scores at which a white applicant would be automatically denied admission. In addition, the school recruits blacks nationwide, and grants them and Mexican-Americans scholarships that more needy and better-qualified whites are denied. Four white applicants Sued the school claiming that there scores were good and if they were not white they would have been accepted. The judge ruled in favor of the school saying that the four students were few of the thousands of whites with good scores and that the school broke the law in good faith. They were allowed to keep their quota system intact.
People who argue for affirmative action believe it is just and should not be changed what so ever. There definition of affirmative action is “affirmative action policies include any policies that (a) attempt to actively dismantle institutionalized or informal cultural norms and systems of astrictive group-based disadvantage, and the inequalities historically resulting from them, and/or that (b) attempt to promote an ideal of inclusive community, as in ideals of democracy, integration, and pluralism (multiculturalism), (c) by means that classify people according to their astrictive identities (race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.).”Top corporate executive jobs are still 93% white and the number of African American executives is not on the rise. White males also make on average 20% more than African Americans and nearly 30% more than women. Affirmative Action dose not work perfectly. It should not end until all races man and woman make the same rates. Affirmative action mealy opens the door to the “under privileged and deprived,” the candidates still need to make there own way in life.
Ethnicmajority.com disagrees with the fact that Affirmative action is flawed.
If affirmative action were just about quotas, you would find that: a significant percentage of hires and promotions would go to under-qualified Ethnic minorities and the goals of all affirmative action programs would be met. While there are instances in which a more-qualified non-Ethnic minority is passed over for a less-qualified or even under-qualified Ethnic minority. To institute such a policy makes no business sense whatsoever. The main reason is that the punishment for not meeting the goals and timetables does not justify promoting a lesser-skilled workforce. That is why although progress continues to be made, most affirmative action programs fail to meet their goals and timetables, and end up continuing.
They later go on to state that the process is necessary it just needs to be done a different way. The number of black Americans under 18 years old who live in extreme poverty has risen sharply since 2000 and is now at its highest level since the government began collecting such figures in 1980 (ethnicmajority). They also attribute the lack of positive programs to the fact that ethnic minorities are highly under-represented in politics. While 13% of the population is African American, only 7% of the members of Congress are African American. 10% of the population is Hispanic, compared to 4% members of Congress. For Asian Americans, 3% of the population compared to 1% Congressional members. According to them Affirmative action is just and needs to be kept to preserve minority rights.
On the other side of the coin are the people that oppose affirmative action. They believe that it is unfair and extremely unconstitutional. If all men are created equal then why should race be a factor ever? There are numerous court cases of reverse racism. "It is undemocratic to give one class of citizens advantages at the expense of other citizens; the truly democratic way is to have a level playing field to which everyone has access and where everyone has a fair and equal chance to succeed on the basis of his or her merit (theatlantic)." They are all for the abolishment of affirmative action.
When the topic arises about the racism the white people it is often called “reverse racism.” Phil Kent, the president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, says, "Government-sponsored segregation was wrong forty years ago, and it's just as wrong today. It's not so much reverse discrimination. It's just plain old discrimination (cbsnews)." He is currently taking part in many legal cases in attempt to end the race-based programs. Even current president George Bush has said his bit on racism. He complains that the University of Michigan's mild attempts at affirmative action are "divisive, unfair and impossible to square with the Constitution." The current system installed at the University of Michigan is not fair to even the qualified students of color. Some do not believe that they could have gotten in on their own without the help of their race. There are many things wrong with this system and something needs to change and fast.
There are many possible solutions to quail this uproar of tension. The university has tried to implement the 10% rule. This rule basically means that the top 10% of every high school graduating class in the state is guaranteed admission. They pay no attention to race or sex of those candidates. What seems like a perfect solution goes wrong because the number of African Americans and Mexican American enrolled in the freshmen class has dwindled. The university has also had to reduce the number of students it accepts from outside of the state. The University of California, in attempt to stop segregation in public schools, they passed a referendum banning race and ethnicity in public college admissions, the number of blacks, Hispanics and American Indians admitted to the University of California's two top campuses has dropped precipitously. So what is the best solution? The best solution uses a little bit from each viewpoint. The first step is making a measuring stick. For collages and universities they can make theirs by a combination of test scores, grade point average (taking in to account class difficulty), community/school involvement, and application essays. They would then closely examine the bottom 5% that would be accepted and the top 5% not accepted. They would then make decisions on interview, and economic class. One of the main reasons affirmative action was created in the first place was to give those deprived of chances a leg up. The truly deprived students are not strictly the ones of color but the ones of underprivileged economic classes. Business would also make there own measuring sticks. They would use things like the amount of higher education received and where from, any experience, and an interview. The only way to keep it fair is make the measuring stick the same length for all people no matter what sex or race they are. When no clear candidate brakes through that is when you look at his or her economic background to make the final decision.
To sum everything up, affirmative action is unfair the way it is now and must be changed. In the past the old rules were needed to keep people in line and to stop racism but now it is different. Two wrongs do not make a right and that is why the system must change. A system based on credentials and if necessary economic status. The system needs to change now before tensions rise past the point of no return.
Other Informational sites
The Affirmative Action Diversity Project
Affirmative Action Under Attack
Pro view
Time Line
The Origins of Affirmative Action
Ethnic Views
Reverse Racism?
Realities of Reverse Racism
