Affirmative Action And Discrimination Essay Example For Students

Affirmative Action And Discrimination Essay What is affirmative action? This has been a very interesting question throughoutthe past thirty years. Many people would like to answer it with simply the namegiven to programs that try to correct past and ongoing discriminations againstwomen, racial minorities, and others in the work force and in education. Wherethis answer may be a good textbook style response, not all people agree with it. Affirmative action was created out of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It actually went into effect out of an Executive order that was delivered byPresident Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. He wanted to do more than what thenon-discrimination laws of the time were trying to accomplish. He also wanted tosee minorities and women get a better chance at advancement in their currentjobs. President Nixon, whom also implemented the same Executive order, keptaffirmative action alive. President Ford helped to update affirmative action byadding the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam Era Veterans ReadjustmentAct of 1974. Years later President Carter created an office to handleaffirmative action cases that dealt with the contract aspects of the originalAffirmative Action plan, and called it the Office of Federal Contract CompliancePrograms. There were three prime aspects of affirmative action that fell intoplace. The first was affirmative action in employment. The second area isaffirmative action dealing with contracts. The third area of affirmative actiondeals w ith the area of education. When we look at the affirmative action plansof employment, this is one area that most all of us have came into contact atsome point in our lives. When you and I go to apply for a job with a company, wefeel that if we are the best qualified for the position that we should receiveit. This is the way that most normal people would feel. With Affirmative Action,this idea of the best-qualified person for the job is not a reality. Not allcompanies still go with the idea of Affirmative Action as a written policy, butmay still have it as an acting practice in their hiring. Throughout the pastthirty years many people have been promoted, hired, or even fired based upontheir color of their skin, or on the basis of their sex. Does this sound like avery fair thing to do? Most would not think so, but it is a reality thatAffirmative Action has put into play. In May of 1994 at St. BonaventureUniversity, the president of the university fired 22 of his faculty members forbei ng males. He openly admitted that the firings were based on gender and notqualifications. Some of these professors even had tenure that were fired. Needless to say, a group of twelve of the men went to the US Equal EmploymentOpportunity Commission and brought up charges on the school. This is not theonly example of a bias workplace that is moving in a reverse discriminatoryfashion. There are many other businesses and companies that like to give specialconsiderations to the minorities and females, just so that they can put off someappearance that they are trying to be fair to all of their employees. This ideaof hiring anyone that is less qualified than someone else based on the color orhis or her skin is wrong. Discrimination no matter how you want to view it isnot anything that will go away by forcing companies to put into practice aprogram that selectively picks the worker that is less qualified, but happens tofit in the correct minority group or is female. When a company does this it issetting itself up for internal problems with workers that already work there. .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e , .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e .postImageUrl , .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e , .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e:hover , .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e:visited , .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e:active { border:0!important; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e:active , .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .uad20c6c4f85544311a34bb9f20ecf39e:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Asians And Census 2000 EssayAny idea of discrimination or racism that already exists in the workers may beheightened instead of lessened. The idea that your coworker didnt have to scoreas high on the test, meet the same requirements, or have as much schooling asyou because they are a minority is going to cause most people to feel a bitenraged. In a business where a persons physical skills are an important part ofthe job, such as heavy machinery, hiring a less qualified person could causesafety issues as well. Would you want someone working a crane around you if theybarely passed the test for operations? From an administrative standpoint themanagement may also feel a negati ve attitude toward being forced to hire someonewho they know doesnt fit the job, but some sort of government program istelling them too. This could cause internal conflict at even the managementlevel toward the workers. Contract work between the government and contractorsis another area that was targeted by the Affirmative Action programs. The sametype of safety issues are the first concerns that come to mind when you think ofthe government hiring potentially less qualified contractors to do work forthem. The upside to this part of the plan is it helps to break away from some ofthe political ties that some contractors have had in the past. It gives some ofthe smaller companies a chance to prove themselves. Education is another area ofAffirmative Action that has had its criticisms. The admittance of a student foreducational purposes without having to meet the same requirements as the wholeseems to me to be a bit discriminative in nature. A popular case that hasoccurred in our history was that of Regrents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978). In this case the University had reserved 16 of its 100 openingsfor minorities. The other 64 slots had already been filled so because Bakke wasnot a minority, his admittance was denied, even though he was more qualifiedthan his minority competitors. The admittance of a student to a University orany other college program without having to score as high as the generalpopulation on the entrance exams is another form of Affirmative Actiondiscrimination. At Ivy League colleges the median GPA of applicants is close toa 4.0 and SAT scores are close to 1300. The minorities that apply are admittedwith a GPA of less than 3.0 and an SAT score of less than 1000. Is this reallyletting in the most qualified and elite students? I really dont see how itcould be. The Affirmative Action programs started off with the idea that ourcountry was going to try to make up for some of the bad things that happened tothe minorities of our country many years ago. The idea that anybody owes anyonespec ial treatment for something in our past is a bit unfounded. I agree thatAffirmative Action programs helped to do away with segregation in a lot ofinstances and even finally let some of the blacks get into college. This part ofthe plan I agree with. The programs are now out of date however. PresidentClinton has addressed this issue during his presidency. He has brought aboutfour standards for all Affirmative Action programs that still exist: no quotasin theory or practice, no illegal discrimination of any kind, no preferences forpeople that are not qualified, and as soon as the program has succeeded it mustbe retired. Although the president has stated these guidelines, it hasntchanged everyones way of business or thinking. The people who are benefitingfrom the Affirmative Action programs that are still around today are people whonever suffered any injustice from our past. Our work force is now being made upof younger people who never once had the government tell them were they had to get a drink of water or sit on a bus. Those days have passed and it is time forour country to move on and let the past rest. Affirmative Action is nothing morethan a legal way to discriminate. If the plans are meant to make up for thediscrimination of the minorities of the past by discriminating against themajority now, then that is saying that two wrongs make a right. Now the only onewho suffers is the white male who gets rejected for a position for being part ofthe majority. Will this whole idea of Affirmative Action really help end thebarriers of discrimination, or will it just enrage the people who are nowsuffering because of it and make the situation worse?