“I have a dream,” Dr. Martin Luther King uttered, “that one day…” Every child in America learns about this dream in school. We reminisce about his dream each year as we celebrate his life and legacy, and yet the great question is how do we fulfill this dream? Because upholding segregation is against the law, some argue that we have already achieved an equal “level playing field.” That was not Dr. King’s view; he understood and tried to teach us about the lasting scars of race in this society. The story of African-Americans started with two hundred and fifty years of slavery, followed by a hundred years of legal apartheid—a separate and unequal “public accommodations.” July 2014 will mark the legal ending of this era, only fifty years ago. It took a civil rights movement with the sacrifice of many lives and the heroism of many ordinary people to end legal apartheid in this country. What is the cure for 350 years of legal injustice? President Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon believed the answer was affirmative action. Affirmative action would unlock doors— to gain admission to college, jobs, mortgages, loans, and et cetera. The institution of affirmative action would not remedy past evils, yet it would at least create opportunity for future generations. However, affirmative action immediately generated negative reactions—and nowhere so fiercely than in college admissions. Why? Admissions are limited to number and are viewed as extremely important—opening the doors to life’s successes. If affirmative actions benefit minorities, then members of the majority will be discriminated against. The college and university admissions process should be re-evaluated and re-distinguished to benefit all in society. In most cases, affirmative action po... ... middle of paper ... ... rates of 18- to 24-year-olds in degree-granting institutions, by sex and race/ethnicity: 1967 through 2006. [Digest of Education Statistics] Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_195.asp Redhead, J. (1997, April 17). Jesse Jackson on prop. 209. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/1997-04-17/local/me-49584_1_affirmative-action-whites-and-males-judge-thelton-henderson United States History (n.d.). Affirmative action. Retrieved April 21 from http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1970.html Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. (2014, 19 April). FL: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved April 22, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action Yuill, K. L. (2006). Richard Nixon and the rise of affirmative action: The pursuit of racial equality in an era of limits. Oxford, UK: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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...
Morrison, T. (1992). Race-ing justice, en-gendering power : essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the construction of social reality. NewYork, NY: Pantheon Books
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...
...Philip (1986) “Court’s term marked by blows to race bias; justices ok affirmative action, ease challenges to discrimination in voting, pay, jury selection” Los Angeles Times, July 4: Part 1; pg 1; Column 2.
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.
Discrimination in the United States came to an end 54 years ago, or did it? Most are aware of the ethnic and sexual discrimination that plagued the United States from its founding years until 1960. White males primarily were the people in charge of making all the government and business decisions impacting the country. Even though slavery ended in 1865 and females played a significant role in the home, blacks and females voices were not considered for important decision making events. In this paper I will outline Lisa Newton’s argument towards reverse discrimination, a professor of philosophy at Fairfield University; she argues that “reverse discrimination
In 2001 statistics reported by the United States Department of Education indicated that during 1997-1998 African American students received 8.3% of bachelor’s degrees awarded. Concurrently, Hispanic students as well as Asian or Pacific Islander students received 6.0%, while American Indian/Alaskan Native students only accounted for .7%. Although statistics from agencies who report differ, clearly on a national level, minority students
Sellin, Thorsten. "Race Prejudice in the Administration of Justice." American Journal of Sociology 41.2 (1935): 212. Print.
Affirmative action has been a controversial topic ever since it was established in the 1960s to right past wrongs against minority groups, such as African Americans, Hispanics, and women. The goal of affirmative action is to integrate minorities into public institutions, like universities, who have historically been discriminated against in such environments. Proponents claim that it is necessary in order to give minorities representation in these institutions, while opponents say that it is reverse discrimination. Newsweek has a story on this same debate which has hit the nation spotlight once more with a case being brought against the University of Michigan by some white students who claimed that the University’s admissions policies accepted minority students over them, even though they had better grades than the minority students. William Symonds of Business Week, however, thinks that it does not really matter. He claims that minority status is more or less irrelevant in college admissions and that class is the determining factor.
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
Sacks, David, and Peter Thiel. "The Case Against Affirmative Action." Stanford Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2014.
Today there is considerable disagreement in the country over Affirmative Action with the American people. MSNBC reported a record low in support for Affirmative Action with 45% in support and 45% opposing (Muller, 2013). The affirmative action programs have afforded all genders and races, exempting white males, a sense of optimism and an avenue to get the opportunities they normally would not be eligible for. This advantage includes admission in colleges or hiring preferences with public and private jobs; although Affirmative Action has never required quotas the government has initiated a benefits program for the schools and companies that elect to be diversified. The advantages that are received by the minorities’ only take into account skin color, gender, disability, etc., are what is recognized as discriminatory factors. What is viewed as racism to the majority is that there ar...
Signed in an executive order by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity was created to ensure that hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias. Three years later, President Lyndon Johnson presented the Civil Rights Act in 1964 prohibiting discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin (Wang & Shulruf, 2012). Later that same year, President Johnson gave a commencement speech attempting to give an ethical response to the losses both materially and mentally to the African-Americans in slavery in the United States (Chace, 2011). Within the later years of the 1960s, higher education institution administrators, in an effort to boost under-represented groups of minorities, introduced the affirmative action concept into the admissions processes (Wang & Shulruf, 2012). What has been the effect of these monumental milestones for minorities and under-repre... ...
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....
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. (2006).Black Student College Graduation Rates Remain Low, But Modest Progress Begins to Show. Retrieved from: http://www.jbhe.com/features/50_blackstudent_gradrates.html