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Affirmative action is an attempt by the United States to amend a long history of racial and sexual discrimination. But these days it seems to incite, not ease, the nations internal divisions. Opponents of affirmative action say that the battle for equal rights is over, and that requiring quotas that favor one group over another is discrimination. The people that defend it say that the playing field is not level, and that providing advantages for minorities and women is fair considering the discrimination those groups tolerated for years.
Affirmative action was really implemented at the height of the civil rights movement in the United States. Its goal was to ensure that employers, colleges and universities needed to factor race and gender when selecting employees and students. "Under affirmative action there would be an active effort to make sure that the work place and the university included people of all races and both sexes." (Hanmer). Prior to this in the United States, opportunity did not exist for all. Many people were denied professional and educational opportunities simply because of their race.
Affirmative action was to change the way employers hired. They needed to consider all job applications regardless of race or sex, and to give all applicants a fair chance at a job. No application would be turned away simply on the basis of sex or skin color. Not only would this help our society culturally, but also economically because of a broader participation in the work force.
Although affirmative action did include all minorities, it may have never became government policy if it were not for the civil rights movement that began in the 150's. The Civil War had ended slavery nearly a century before, but sill many African-Americans had never been granted full equality. Many states, particularly the South, passed laws "that were designed to segregate the white and black races and to keep African Americans in an inferior position in society." (Hamner). These laws were called "Jim Crow laws." Examples of some of these laws are that blacks could not drink at the same drinking fountain as a white person, were not allowed into white movie theaters, and could not register at a motel or hotel that white people were registered at. Also in most southern states, blacks could not vote.
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These laws also denied blacks equal education. Black children could not attend the same schools as white children. Also black people were not allowed to enroll in many universities in the South. The separate facilities were far from equal. "At black schools and colleges, the faculty were poorly paid, the facilities inferior, and the curriculum at black colleges was often limited to agricultural and technical programs designed to train southern blacks for low-paying jobs. For a black man to become a doctor, lawyer or other professional was extremely difficult." (Hamner).
Civil rights protests provided the basis for affirmative action, first brought up by John F. Kennedy. "In declaring the federal contractors must utilize "affirmative action" to recruit minority employees, [Kennedy] was responding to the claims of the civil rights movement." (Hamner). The Civil Rights Act of 164 most clearly defined affirmative action. There were seven sections to the bill. Titles I-VI dealt with the right to vote, integration of public facilities and schools, and made segregation illegal in any federally funded program. Title VII dealt primarily with employment practices. It clearly stated that discrimination in hiring was illegal.
The Supreme Court has considered the constitutionality of affirmative action in a number of cases involving such issues as admission to educational institutions, job hiring and promotion, exemption from ordinary seniority-bound job-layoff rules, award of public building contracts, and award of licenses for radio and television stations by the federal Communications Commission. "In the Supreme Court case, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Allan Bakke, a white applicant, was rejected twice even though there were minority applicants admitted with significantly lower scores than his. Bakke maintained that judging him on the basis of his race was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court ruled that wile race was a legitimate factor in school admissions; the use of such inflexible quotas as the medical school had set aside was not. As a result of the decision Bakke was admitted to the school and graduated in 1. The Supreme Court, however, was split 5-4 in its decision on the Bakke case and addressed only a minimal number of the many complex issues that had sprung up about affirmative action." (Marshall).
An added source of complexity (or confusion) is the different level of freedom accorded the state and federal governments in regard to affirmative action. In the 180 case of Fullilove v. Klutznick, the Supreme Court upheld a federal program that required that minority-controlled businesses be preferred in awarding certain contracts. But, in 18, the court held that Richmond, Virginia, could not require the 0 percent of its building contracts be awarded to minority contractors. "The Court stated that the Fourteenth Amendment limits the states' use of racial preferences more strictly than it does the federal government's."(Marshall).
Affirmative action is very noble when looking at who benefits from the outcome, but take a closer look at affirmative action, the people that are involved and the damage it takes on our society surfaces many doubts. While supporters of affirmative action use black economic progress as proof that affirmative action is working there is more to the story. Obviously preferred treatment has furthered the careers of some blacks, but the evidence is mounting that these policies may be damaging to minorities. Huge legal liabilities, created by policies that make statistical under representation equivalent to discrimination, create incentives for employers to protect themselves by putting distance between their companies and predominantly black communities. (Bill).
Affirmative action weakens the spirit of the individual by making them think the reason they got the job or grant was because someone felt sorry for them. "This happened to a student at the University of Virginia Law School, a young black woman about to become the first black to make the prestigious Law Review when and affirmative action policy went into effect, supplanting a merit-based system of selection. When she heard that she had been thrust onto the Law review as an affirmative action case, she said angrily "Why are you doing this to me? Students want to be on the Law Review because they know big law firms look to [being on the] Law Review as an imprimatur… But if you have two tracks, one for the white kids and another for minorities, the minority who makes the Law Review forever has to defend and explain the door he came through. If he came through the one marked 'Minorities Only' the value is gone from it." (Bill)
Some women believe affirmative action will benefit them in the beginning because there is an incentive to hire women. This will do more to hinder than to help in the long run, it gives males a basis for their resentment and skepticism of females. This can cause additional tension between men and women that was not there before affirmative action.
Who really benefits from affirmative action policies? "William Melor of the libertarian Institute for Justice argues that most benefits of affirmative action go to educated middle-income minorities; "It helps those who need it the least. For those in the inner city, it's best useless and at worst creates a climate of hostility from other workers."(Billingsley).
But the failures of affirmative action programs to improve the economic conditions of their supposed beneficiaries, nor the hatred or stress they have endured have caused their supporters to have second thoughts. "The affirmative action bureaucrats have instead argued that the program will work if we just have more of it. They increase their own power and job prospects by finding yet more historical disadvantage and new groups of accredited victims. The city of San Francisco gives preference to gays in hiring and is exploring new protections for transsexuals and cross-dressers, alleged victims of straight society."(Billingsley).
By promoting a system of race-based entitlement, affirmative action is keeping America from evolving into a color-blind society where people are judged on their abilities, not the color of their skin. Affirmative action is a system of racial preferences and quotas that deny opportunity to individuals solely because they are not members of a preferred race or ethnic group. By locking deserving whites out of jobs and schools to make room for minorities with much weaker records, affirmative action heighten racial divisions and tensions.
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