Preview

Affrimative Action

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1745 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Affrimative Action
Affirmative Action is it still Valuable

COM/220
June 4, 2013

Affirmative action, what is it? Affirmative action is an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women. (Affirmative action. (2013). In Merriam Webster. Retrieved from http://m-w.com) Affirmative action is very important in our modern society, Affirmative action is the most effective way of addressing discrimination against minorities and women. Affirmative action has been around for several years and is still needed today. Affirmative action has been very helpful in court cases in society since it has become a law. In 1954 there was the Brown vs. Board of Education case, which made it possible for African Americans to attend school. In 1978 The University of California vs. Bakke case, this banned racial quotas. Then in 2008 came the Fischer vs. University of Texas at Austin (UT), this case once again shuttered door for opportunities. This case was brought on by a Caucasian student who felt that she was passed over in favor of minority students with less of an academic level. The end result of this case was in favor of the school not the student Abigail Fischer. Affirmative action is still needed until society solves racial issues. Without affirmative action in place minorities and women would not get the equal opportunity of education or employment. Taking away affirmative action is a step backwards. Steba has said that “we have a long way to go to reach a point where there is racial, sexual, and economic justice.” Affirmative action is needed to make sure that our society can move towards a racial, sexual and economic justified society. Also past issues of racial injustice must be addressed for the country to move forward. It has been thought that even people whom oppose affirmative action understand that race, gender and class need to come into account for equal opportunity. People realize that not everyone



References: Backes, B. (2012). Do Affirmative Action Bans Lower Minority College Enrollment and Attainment?. Journal Of Human Resources, 47(2), 435-455 Chace, W. M. (2011). Affirmative Inaction: Opposition to affirmative action has drastically reduced minority enrollment at public universities; private institutions have the power and the responsibility to reverse the trend. American Scholar, 80(1), 20-31 FANIKO, K., LORENZI-CIOLDI, F., BUSCHINI, F., & CHATARD, A. (2012). The Influence of Education on Attitudes toward Affirmative Action: The Role of the Policy 's Strength. Journal Of Applied Social Psychology, 42(2), 387-413. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2011.00892. González, B. E., & Sweeney, K. A. (2010). The Color of Affirmative Action: Exploring Contemporary Racial Ideologies through Public Responses to Affirmative Action Policies in Michigan. Journal Of Race & Policy, 6(1), 106-122. Lawson, B. (2011). Sterba on Affirmative Action, or, it Never was the bus, it was Us!. Journal Of Ethics, 15(3), 281-290. doi:10.1007/s10892-011-9104-4 Moses, M. S., & Farley, A. N. (2011). Are Ballot Initiatives a Good Way to Make Education Policy? The Case of Affirmative Action. Educational Studies, 47(3), 260-279. doi:10.1080/00131946.2011.573607 Sabbagh, D. (2011). The paradox of decategorization: deinstitutionalizing race through race-based affirmative action in the United States. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 34(10), 1665-1681. doi:10.1080/01419870.2011.569029 WASHINGTON, A. (2013). The Race Question. Chronicle Of Higher Education, 44

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Affirmative action is clearly favoring minority groups, and giving them an undeserved advantage. An example of this discrimination is clear, a statistic from the New York Times shows that after affirmative action was banned in California, the number of Hispanics and blacks accepted at UC Berkeley, and UC LA dropped sharply. Every time a college bases its decision on who to accept based on race or color, the racial tensions between minorities and majorities will rise in American…

    • 644 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Grutter vs. Bollinger

    • 2214 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The underrepresentation of African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans in college due to the historical discrimination against them is delineated by the admissions policy of Michigan Law School. Justice Thomas’s opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, “the use of race for the attainment of a diverse student body”, has set a legal precedence.…

    • 2214 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This article sheds light on the last affirmative action case which was 10 years ago. The article goes into detail about the 13 page dissent that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy issued after the ruling. The article also talks about whether or not colleges should be allowed to take race into consideration so that they can have diverse classes.…

    • 309 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sterba, J. P. (January 01, 2010). Affirmative Action for the Future. Contemporary Sociology, 39, 6, 761.…

    • 1463 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The minorities in America are still citizens of the nation, yet are largely misrepresented, even with the acquisition of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. American society is far from having that equality forum it so eagerly boasts. According to Race In America, in 1996 when California Voters enforced Proposition 209, which eliminated most affirmative action programs statewide, it resulted in the drastic decline in admittance of African Americans and Latinos into California top Universities (478). Without the regulatory implementation of policies that favor minorities, institutions default back into their regular setting and disregard the notion of diversity. Minorities again suffer and their opportunities are once again limited. The fact remains that institutional racism, although reluctant to be discussed, is still a prevalent issue. Tim Wise states in “Affirmative Action Is Not Racial Profiling,” “despite affirmative action, statistics show that whites still are advantaged in educational opportunities and employments.” To argue that such policies are taking the position of other whites, is a huge misconception given the statistics nationwide. Society has the moral obligation to dismantle the wide belief of racial…

    • 1785 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    One concept that continues to be a hot-button issue throughout America's history, as well as in present-day is affirmative action. Affirmative action, at its root base, is defined as the favoring of a group of people based on previous discrimination and disenfranchisement throughout history. Specifically, affirmative action plays an integral role in the admission of disadvantaged minorities into a vast number of schools, organizations, and occupations. Moreover, a new conflict has arisen regarding affirmative action: whether or not the criteria should shift from race, gender, and ethnicity, to class and poverty. From a non-minority's perspective on the controversial issue of affirmative action, one could make the argument that affirmative…

    • 1268 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In this essay I will expose what I see as the shortcomings of the current…

    • 1733 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Affirmative Action

    • 37361 Words
    • 150 Pages

    Introduction I. Racial Affirmative Action in Higher Education May Be on Its Way Out 1…

    • 37361 Words
    • 150 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Best Essays

    “President Kennedy, as a way to fight discrimination, first coined the term Affirmative Action in 1961. Later on President Johnson employed Affirmative Action as a means of “a more profound stage of the battle for civil rights . . . not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and result”” (“Background on Affirmative Action.”). Over the past few decades Affirmative Action has grown out of where it originated from and been altered to the extent where it has lost touch with its original intent. A prime example of the misuse of Affirmative Action can be seen in the college admissions process. The arguments against Affirmative Action fall into two categories. First Affirmative Action is immoral and causes individuals to act in an immoral manner, and second, rather than positive consequences Affirmative Action has a net negative consequence on individuals. The removal of Affirmative Action programs in colleges will lead to a colorblind admissions process that is fair to all races. The use of law enforcement could ensure that minorities are not discriminated against in the…

    • 2888 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Supreme Court was presented with the case of Fischer vs. The University of Texas where Abigail Fisher was suing the University for discrimination in their affirmative action based admissions process. The Supreme Court voted 7-1 and ruled to send the case back to the lower courts for further review and put off making any final decisions to change the U.S. policy on affirmative action, a “longstanding but fragile societal compromise, one that forbids quotas but allows using race as one factor among many in the admissions process” (Laptik). Both articles discussed in length the constitutionality of the race-based admissions process as well as explaining the Supreme Court’s position on the matter. The justices made statements that explained that the admissions programs must be subject to strict scrutiny where the it can be determined that classification based on gender, race and ethnicity occurs for the sole purpose of creating a diverse student population. The programs that use affirmative action in public universities are being scrutinized to ensure that their methods are a means to an end and serve to create diversity only. This issue will come before the Supreme Court again in the future and there will most likely be a more permanent ruling on the matter.…

    • 580 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Injustice is something that has always existed and unfortunately will continue to exist. Injustices deprive people of their abilities to strive for better goals and dreams. It is time that the minorities that have and continues to suffer from these injustices to be restituted. I argue that the affirmative action has not completed its intended purposes of presenting minorities with equal rights. And that it is needed now just as much as it was needed in the past.…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Introduction During the 1960’s, there was a significant disparity between the amount of minority and female representation in the workforce versus the amount in the American population. In an attempt to correct this disparity, President John F. Kennedy enacts Executive Order 10925 which causes for an aggressive hiring of minorities by the federal government (Chrisman, 2013). Consequently, over-time, the civil rights movement as well as current laws and Supreme Court decisions greatly expand the idea of affirmative action well beyond the idea of what President Kennedy had envisioned it to be. For the minorities of America, affirmative action came to be known as a struggle against racism and racist practices (Chrisman, 2013).…

    • 1310 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: " We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King stated this in his famous " I have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C. in 1963. (King) Is affirmative action still necessary in America? Affirmative action is still necessary because America does not have enough equality and diversity.…

    • 1251 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Affirmative action is a controversial topic topic, especially in American society. Affirmative action is an active effort to improve the employment or education opportunities of members of minority groups and women. It also means a similar effort to promote the rights of other disadvantaged persons. In America, affirmative action is for a disadvantaged group to have equal opportunities, regardless of: race, religion/creed, sex, national origin, and disability (OFCCP). Many surround the words affirmative action around race, but socioeconomic status, gender, and various other background characteristics play a role. These factors and more especially in the realm of education. Affirmative action is beneficial due to its history and who it affects.…

    • 1385 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    America is called “the land of opportunity” however, most of the countries citizens are not able to enjoy the benefits that the title provides. Being able to accomplish scholastic goals, attend a four-year college, and to have an influential career, are not obtainable for many, even though they work hard. Our nation has long been plagued by an ugly occurrence. An occurrence that finds its origins at the very core of our society. It is a problem familiar in some ways to all of us regardless of which side of the argument we find ourselves, and yet it remains unsolved.…

    • 855 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays