Why do colleges ask for “race” when filling out an application? Does it really matter? It may seem like a simple question, but it is not. There has been a great deal of controversy over this question and other similar ones. Giving certain groups of people a competitive edge when they apply for schools and jobs is known as affirmative action. There are people who are directly opposed to it and those that support it completely. More often however, people agree with certain aspects of affirmative action and disagree with others. The following introduces a small sample of people who have talked about affirmative action and their views on it. Few of the results are factual but rather they are opinions. The hope is that by combing other author’s thoughts and views it will make it easier for an individual to formulate their own.
Affirmative action has been a topic of discussion for a long time, but only recently has it become such a major controversy. It is generally agreed on that affirmative action became a real topic of debate around 1964 during the civil rights movement. Even the definition of affirmative action is controversial; this is addressed by Antwi-Boasiako, Kwame Badue, and Joseph Osagba. They provide two primary definitions of affirmative action. The first says that the purpose of affirmative action is to right the wrongs of past discrimination. The second is that affirmative action works much like a “quota system,” i.e. schools are required to have certain levels of diversity in their schools. To reach that diversity schools use affirmative action, allowing in less qualified minorities to promote diversity.
To help validate Antwi-Boasiako and colleagues' claims on affirmative action they conducted an experiment. In the...
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...es And Affirmative Action In Making Admission Decisions At A Predominantly White University.” College Student Journal 39.4 (2005): 734-748. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Feb. 2014
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3.The term Affirmative action has played a huge role in the past one hundred years of American politics. It is simply defined as an action or policy favoring those who tend to suffer. Civil Rights of American citizens have drastically changed because of Affirmative action. With almost anything in politics, there is a debate for and against Affirmative action. Supporters of this say that this helps encourage e...
Discrimination is still a chronic global issue, and drastic inequalities still exist at the present time. Thus, the Affirmative Action Law is an important tool to many minorities most especially to women, and people of color, for the reason that this program provides an equality on educational, and professional opportunities for every qualified individual living in the United States. Without this program, a higher education would have been impossible for a “minority students” to attain. Additionally, without the Affirmative Action, a fair opportunity to have a higher-level career...
The institution of public education has been one of the most controversial establishments in the United States since its inception. More specifically, equality in the conditions and the opportunities it provides has been sought as one of its major goals. There is little doubt that minority ethnic groups have struggled to achieve educational equality, just as they have struggled for equality in other aspects of life. One way that minorities have tried to achieve equality in education is through lobbying for help in college admissions for their respective groups. This social practice has been debated on many grounds, including necessity and ethical permissibility.
No one—whether they’re black, white, Asian, Latino, or female—should have their qualifications questioned because of their skin color. Still using affirmative action today causes more problems than it should for minorities and women. Skin color should not be a factor of consideration for anything. Only scores, hard work, and dedication should be used to determine how a person will possibly succeed in college or a job.
Affirmative action, the act of giving preference to an individual for hiring or academic admission based on the race and/or gender of the individual has remained a controversial issue since its inception decades ago. Realizing its past mistake of discriminating against African Americans, women, and other minority groups; the state has legalized and demanded institutions to practice what many has now consider as reverse discrimination. “Victims” of reverse discrimination in college admissions have commonly complained that they were unfairly rejected admission due to their race. They claimed that because colleges wanted to promote diversity, the colleges will often prefer to accept applicants of another race who had significantly lower test scores and merit than the “victims”. In “Discrimination and Disidentification: The Fair-Start Defense of Affirmative Action”, Kenneth Himma responded to these criticisms by proposing to limit affirmative action to actions that negate unfair competitive advantages of white males established by institutions (Himma 277 L. Col.). Himma’s views were quickly challenged by his peers as Lisa Newton stated in “A Fair Defense of a False Start: A Reply to Kenneth Himma” that among other rationales, the Fair-Start Defense based on race and gender is a faulty justification for affirmative action (Newton 146 L. Col.). This paper will also argue that the Fair-Start Defense based on race and gender is a faulty justification for affirmative action because it cannot be fairly applied in the United States of America today. However, affirmative action should still be allowed and reserved for individuals whom the state unfairly discriminates today.
To sum everything up, we as a human race are not perfect, nor will we ever make solutions that will satisfy both side of arguments. One lesson we can learn from this research paper, however, is that everyone should have the ability to fully enjoy their Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendments. Nonetheless, the development of reverse discrimination, the creation of stigma against women and minorities, the buildup of racial tension, and the fact of attempting to solve a racial problem that no longer exist all contributed to the danger of affirmative action. It may be created with good intentions, but certainly not applicable to our society now if all of us wish to be treated equal.
California's decision in 1996 to outlaw the use of race in public college admissions was widely viewed as the beginning of the end for affirmative action at public universities all over the United States. But in the four years since Californians passed Proposition 209, most states have agreed that killing affirmative action outright would deepen social inequality by denying minority citizens access to higher education. The half-dozen states that are actually thinking about abandoning race-sensitive
The discrimination against Caucasian and Asian American students a long with the toleration of lower quality work produced by African American students and other minority students is an example of the problems caused by Affirmative Action. Although affirmative action intends to do good, lowering the standards by which certain racial groups are admitted to college is not the way to solve the problem of diversity in America's universities. The condition of America's public schools is directly responsible for the poor academic achievement of minority children. Instead of addressing educational discrepancies caused by poverty and discrimination, we are merely covering them up and pretending they do not exist, and allowing ourselves to avoid what it takes to make a d... ... middle of paper ... ...
Known as one of the biggest obstacles in higher education to date would arguably be the use of affirmative action within the higher education admission process for both private and public institutions (Kaplin & Lee, 2014; Wang & Shulruf, 2012). The focus of current research is an attempt to either justify or deny the use of affirmative action within current practices through various higher education institutions, and though any one person could potentially be swayed to side with the rationale to maintain its use or disregard, the facts are quite clear that the future of this practice is unclear. Therefore, this essay will present current research in an attempt to determine if affirmative action should continue to be used within college admission decisions.
Sabbagh, Daniel. "The Rise Of Indirect Affirmative Action: Converging Strategies For Promoting “Diversity” In Selective Institutions Of Higher Education In The United States And France." World Politics 63.3 (2011): 470-508. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 May 2014.
Affirmative action policies were created to help level the playing field in American society. Supporters claim that these plans eliminate economic and social disparities to minorities, yet in doing so, they’ve only created more inequalities. Whites and Asians in poverty receive little to none of the opportunities provided to minorities of the same economic background (Messerli). The burden of equity has been placed upon those who were not fortunate enough to meet a certain school’s idea of “diversity” (Andre, Velasquez, and Mazur). The sole reason for a college’s selectivity is to determine whether or not a student has the credentials to attend that school....
Very few people will argue against the unethical nature of the racial segregation that existed in the United States during the early 20th century, and far less so of that which existed in the antebellum South. However, affirmative action can often occupy a moral grey-area for some people, as a form of benign racism or sexism. After all, if its intentions are good, what harm could it do? This is where supporters of affirmative action get it wrong. By giving in to this circularly validated mentality, we are allowing the ends to justify the means. In order to eliminate racial prejudice, affirmative action advocates promote a system that adheres to racial discrimination as a solution. Simply replacing one form of discrimination for another.
The original premise, regarded as “weak affirmative action” is to give everyone, including the minorities, “equal opportunity to compete, not equal results” (Pojman 44). Weak affirmative action only provides the fair playing field by making sure that everyone is considered, but the selection process is completely race-neutral. It also claims that it will only serve as a “tie breaker”, as to distinguish between two equal-skilled applicants in the final decision if they are of different races. On the contrary, the weak form of affirmative action has been distorted, with its racial preferences accentuated, to form the controversial “strong affirmative action”. Over the past decade, many high-level institutions have taken on the form of strong affirmative action in its admission process, giving unfair advantage to minority applicants and discriminating against others, particularly the Asian and white applicants. Moreover, those who benefit from affirmative action has not received satisfying results, due to a mismatch in their personal abilities and academic credentials and the institution’s high
It is not surprising that affirmative action is under attack: along with welfare, it benefits a section of society with very little political clout. It is a convenient place for the displaced anger of working-class white men who have seen their real wages decrease for the past thirty years. It stirs up feelings of racism that politicians are quick to publicly denounce but even quicker to exploit. There is, however, very little serious discussion about affirmative action underway; more often it is supplanted by buzzwords such as "quotas," "set-asides," and "reverse discrimination." A serious discussion of affirmative action must begin by addressing the question of collective responsibility.
Affirmative action commonly means giving special treatment to certain people such as minorities and women to correct past discrimination against these groups by increasing recruitment, promotions, retention and on-the-job training by removing barriers to admission to universities and educational establishments. Affirmative Action is sometimes thought of as “positive discrimination”. Affirmative Action may seem like it is only positive, but it does have its flaws and has often been debated over, including rulings by the Supreme Court.