America And Affirmative Action Essay Research Paper — страница 2

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the effectiveness of Blacks because their coworkers will not be cooperative, or because the minority will always doubt that he or she deserves to be there, I propose that affirmative action will only accomplish the continued exclusion of Black Americans from participation within American society and thus further ingrain stereotypes and stigmas. Another reason that the stigma critique of affirmative action confuses me, is because the discussion is always limited to race and gender based affirmative action policies. Where is the discussion about athletes and legacy students who are accorded preferential treatment in university admission decisions on a yearly basis? This focus on gender and race based policies only reinforces my point that the stigma minorities face has much more to

do with persistent racism than the deleterious effects on affirmative action. Should affirmative action programs force people to hire unqualified minorities? No. But affirmative action programs should cause us as a society to re-evaluate how we access qualifications and how we measure merit. Let us become tenure Harvard Law School professors for just a moment. Suppose we have two applicants for an open associate professor position. The first candidate is White, a Harvard Law School graduate, has impressive board scores, served as editor of the Law Review, etc…, but has never practiced law before. The other candidate is Black, a Harvard Law School graduate, average board scores, has excellent person skills, and practiced law as the county defendant in an inner- city

neighborhood. Under the traditional system of merit, the White Harvard graduate gets the appointment hands down. But under affirmative action policies, the Black Harvard graduate receives the job. Why is this the optimal situation? The Black lawyer brings non-traditional, but certainly valid, qualifications to the table that are not recognized under our current system of merit. In fact, common sense suggests that he is as. or even more, qualified to train lawyers of the future than his White counterpart. Allowing the Black Harvard graduate to have the job might very well call into question how we assess the qualifications we require to be law school professor. This challenge to traditional qualifications brought about by affirmative action appointments benefits all of society by

forcing us be critical of how we assess the nebulous notion of merit. The critics that attack affirmative action are correct when they say that affirmative action corrupts the purity of the process. Extreme care must be taken in determining who receives affirmative action program benefits and how long and at what rate they receive them. I must, also, agree with my critics that affirmative action may destroy or motion of a “color-blind” society. But, the rights of Blacks and other minorities to have equal opportunity forces us to take these risks. In short, it has been recommended that broad-based affirmative action policies range from the workplace to the classroom. While they are not perfect and do raise some legitimate ethical concerns, they take us away from a system that

is inherently unfair to some groups. The active deconstruction of the White privilege that grew out of virulent American racism affords Blacks a greater chance at equal opportunity and will have the side effect of forcing us to re-evaluate that unethically and immorally disadvantages minorities. These advantages outweigh the cost of the risks.