Affirmative Action Essay Research Paper Affirmative ActionAfter — страница 2

“Only if discrimination were nothing more than the misguided acts of a few prejudiced individuals, would Affirmative Actions plans be ?reverse discrimination.? If today’s society were operating fairly toward Minorities and Women, would measures that take race, sex, and national origin into account be ? preferential treatment?? Only if discrimination were securely placed in a well- distant past, would Affirmative Action be an unneeded and drastic remedy”. What the commission failed to realize was that there are hundreds of thousands of White Males who are not discriminating, yet are being punished because of those who do. The Northern Natural Gas Company of Omaha, Nebraska, was forced by the government to release sixty-five White Male workers to make room for Minority

employees in 1977 (Nebraska Advisory Committee 40). Five major Omaha corporations reported that the number of White managers fell 25% in 1969 due to restrictions put on them when Affirmative Action was adopted (Nebraska Advisory Committee 27). You ask, ?What did these individuals do to bring about their termination?? The only crime that they were guilty of was being White. The injustice toward the White Male does not end there. After the White Male has been fired, he has to go out and find a new job to support his family, that depended on the company, to provide health care and a retirement plan, in return for years of hard work. Now, because of Affirmative Action, this White Male, and the thousands like him, require more skills to get the same job that a lesser qualified

African-American Male needs. This is, for all intents and purposes, discrimination, and it is a law that our government strictly enforces. Affirmative Action is not only unfair for the working man, it is extremely discriminatory toward the executive, as well. The average business executive has one goal in mind, and that is to maximize profits. To reach his goal, this executive would naturally hire the most competent Man or Woman for the job, whether they be African-American or White or any other race. Why would a business man intentionally cause his business to lose money by hiring a poorly qualified worker? Most businesses would not. With this in mind, it seems unnecessary to employ any policy that would cause him to do otherwise. But, that is exactly what Affirmative Action

does in todays society. It forces an employer, who needs to meet a quota established by the government, to hire a Minority, no matter who is more qualified. Another way that Affirmative Action deducts from a company’s profits is by forcing them to create jobs for Minorities. This occurs when a company does not meet its quota with existing employees and has to find places to put minorities. These jobs are often unnecessary, and force a company to pay for workers that they do not need. Affirmative Action is not only present in the work place. It is also very powerful in education. Just as a White Male employee needs more credentials to get a job than his minority opponent, a White Male student needs more or better skills to get accepted at a prestigious university than a Minority

student. There are complete sections on college applications dedicated to race and ethnic background. Colleges must now have a completely diverse student body, even if that means some, more qualified students, must be turned away. A perfect example of this can be found at the University of California at Berkeley. A 1995 report released by the university said that 9.7% of all accepted applicants were African American. Only 0.8% of these African American students were accepted by academic criteria alone. 36.8% of the accepted applicants were White. Of these accepted white students, 47.9% were accepted on academic criteria alone. That means that approximately sixty times more African American students were accepted due to non-academic influences than White students. It seems hard to

believe that Affirmative Action wasn’t one of outside influence. Another interesting fact included in the 1995 report said that the average grade point average for a rejected White student was 3.66 with an average SAT score of 1142. The average grade point average for an accepted African American student was 3.66 with a 1030 average SAT score. These stunning facts shows just how many competent, if not gifted students fall between the cracks as a direct result of Affirmative Action. If it has been unclear up to this point I would like to make it clear. My problem is strictly with Affirmative Action. If the true goal is to end discrimination and suppression of people as a whole, then the way Affirmative Action is currently being implemented needs to change. At present it only