Affirmative Action 12 Essay Research Paper Affirmative

Affirmative Action 12 Essay, Research Paper Affirmative Action Affirmative Action efforts were started in 1964 to end the long history of overlooking qualified people of color and women from higher education. Affirmative Action sets standards for a business or office of admissions, so that a white man does not have the upper-hand over an equally or greater educated minority. The initial way the government tried to justify Affirmative Action was to develop a human resource approach: first identifying the problem, which is racism then establishing the solution(Phillips 67). The intent of Affirmative Action helps cut down discrimination in the work place and in schools, despite the fact that some believe that affirmative action is a form of reverse discrimination. In contrast,

the first goal of Affirmative Action was to help people who were poor or badly educated, elevating them to positions for which they were not objectively qualified (Buckley 95). Cousens, author of Public Civil Rights Agencies and Fair Employment indicates that the Affirmative Action techniques have the advantage of not only persuading employers not to discriminate when hiring or accepting, but to expand employment and educational opportunities for minority groups (22). Therefore, Affirmative Action is legitimate because it does reduce discrimination in the work place and related areas such as University acceptance of college students. In the end, it should in no way be abolished. However, Affirmative action is highly controversial. Right now Proposition 209, in California which

bans all programs involving race and sex preferences run by the state, has passed but it will not be put into total action due to some questions of constitutionality (Ayres 34). The law will start slowly first, ending Affirmative Action in the schools of California, leading up to the abolishment of Affirmative Action all together. An argument was declared by Mark Rosenbaum of the Southern California Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, Proposition 209 should be declared unconstitutional because it singles out women and minorities and, at a time when discrimination still exists, sought to preclude them from attaining constitutionally guaranteed right, like jobs and schooling. (Ayres 34). As Rosenbaum pointed out, discrimination does still exist in our not so perfect

world, and so far Affirmative Action is our only solution; so why is California trying so hard to put an end to it? Abolishing Affirmative Action is not the answer. President Clinton spoke out in his speech for National Archives: Let me be clear: Affirmative Action has been good for America, we should have a simple slogan: Mend it, but don t bend it (Benac). Without even trying to change the way Affirmative Action is implemented, California is ending it first. This will prove detrimental to Californian society because it will cause more racial problems. The problem with the Affirmative Action debate could be that those arguing for it do a poor job defending their position. Due to the fact that Affirmative Action has been in place for more than a generation, critics have lost

sight of how the job market and higher education looks without Affirmative Actions stabilizing effects. Yet critics think that Affirmative Action is a cleverly disguised form of racism and ineffective, but taking a look at what happens when there is no Affirmative Action, such as in the court case of Hopwood V. Texas reverse discrimination suit. A court ruling said that the University of Texas Law School was banned from using race at all in their admitting. Attorney General Dan Morales of Texas has understood the ruling as banning Affirmative Action in admissions, scholarships and college recruiting programs. This ruling is now being applied to almost all Texas colleges (Applebome a14). As Peter Applebome puts it Texas and California have become laboratories for a world without