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In the United States, Affirmative Action is a group of policy decisions that provide benefits or some special opportunities to members of underrepresented or underprivileged groups. These policies began in the United States and were aimed at creating an equal opportunity workforce but were also extended to college admissions. These policies were created in 1961 when President Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925 where he wrote that all companies are to, "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." Today, in a country with fairly evolved race relations, Affirmative Action is a topic of hot debate. Many Americans believe that these policies of affirmative action have turned into reverse discrimination against Caucasian Americans, while other Americans believe that we still need these policies.
In class, we read the official Supreme Court documents associated with the case Gratz v. Bollinger, including the consenting and dissenting opinions of the court. The case explores the role of Affirmative Action in college admission at the University of Michigan. Essentially, the University of Michigan was awarding a certain number of points to each applicant to their school. During their admissions processes, they would add a certain amount of points to an applicant if the applicant was from an underrepresented ethnic group. The Center for Individual Rights contacted two white students who had been denied from the college and brought their case to court, where they sued the University for racial discrimination. Ultimately, because of a technicality, the plaintiff lacked standing.
I agree that adding the amou...
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...e is inequality. I think that we need to increase funding for schools in areas where there is low performance due to economic related issues. I think that people in richer areas might need to sacrifice some excess in order to help bring up failing programs in other areas. I think that our country as a whole needs to reexamine why certain groups of people are discriminated against and reevaluate who needs a leg up.
In conclusion, there are many opinions on Affirmative Action. These policies, which were set into place during a very different time period, were at one point extremely important to our country, which was not as accepting as it is today. Although our society has made a lot of progress, we are not perfect. For this reason, although I agree that some policies might need to be reevaluated and updated, I believe they are still important and necessary.
Media plays an essential role in shaping the opinions of society. Writers tend to be selective in the information they provide, manipulating the truth in order to support their own perspective. By placing any given topic under certain light, writers have the power to control the audience’s response and lead them to form an opinion based on their experience with the information. On the other hand, readers have a tendency to readily and automatically accept this information without much thought, despite the possibility that the information they are absorbing is false or biased. Thus, the cycle of perpetuation of misinformation continues; the media feeds the masses false information, and they eat it up.This problem is evident in the topic of affirmative
The name of this case and the specific facts, however, were unavailable at this time.9 Obviously affirmative action and reverse discrimination are still heavily debated issues. This is because they affect all people of all races and ethnicities. Conclusion Allan Bakke was denied his fourteenth amendment right to equal protection of the laws. In addition the University of California at Davis violated Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. By order of the Supreme Court Bakke was admitted and th e numerical quotas of the special admissions program were deemed unconstitutional. Justice was served to Bakke, but future generations who are not minorities may be plagued by the other half of the decision: That race may still be used as a "plus" on an application.
Affirmative Action Question: Newton and Wasserstrom seem to disagree about whether affirmative action is a form of reverse discrimination. Explain how each arrives at their position about whether or not affirmative action is similar to or different from discriminatory laws of the Jim Crow era
Throughout the 1950s, the NAACP with the help of Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall pursued lawsuits against the “separate but equal” policy instated by the Plessy v. Ferguson case. For years, colleges and universities in which there was no African American counterpart avoided court orders to admit black students by hastily setting up “equal” counterparts. But in 1950, the Supreme Court ordered that a black student be admitted to the University of Texas Law School, despite the fact that the state “…had established a “school” for him in the basement” (Foner 953). The court declared that there was no way that this “school” was equal, and demanded that the student be admitted to the law school, sparking an era that called for desegregation. Later, in 1954, a landmark decision came from the Supreme Court as a result of the Brown v. BOE case. In the early 1950s, a man named Oliver Brown went to court to fight that fact that his daughter “…was forced to walk across dangerous railroad tracks each morning rather than being allowed to attend a nearby school restricted to whites” (Foner 953). The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and on May 17, 1954, the court declared that “Segregation in public education…violated the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment” (Foner 954), arguing that the
Affirmative action programs may or may not have been appropriate in times past where inequalities were prevalent and programs to build diversity were mandated. In the United States today, where law bars discrimination, I feel employment opportunities should be based on merit and not on race, sex or any other preconceived notion. Actively recruiting candidates that do not meet minimum requirements or standards is counterproductive to any agency that strives to serve the public in an efficient and effective manner and further erode confidence in government.
The Supreme Court's ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger and in Gratz v. Bollinger are two compelling and complex cases. In the Grutter v. Bollinger case, the Supreme court favored that race and ethnicity along with other factors are justifiable in the admission process of promoting a diverse and inclusive student body on the premises of state law schools. I agree with the court's decision because minorities only make up a small percentage on college campuses and universities, and that race and ethnicity does play a crucial role in recruiting students of colors from various cultural backgrounds. Students must be trained scholars who know how to interact with people from all walks of life and they must be able to adapt and understand different people in different environments in a given context. The goal is for everyone
Affirmative Action is the policies that have been introduced to provide equal opportunities to people who have been historically excluded. The action is implemented by providing equal access to education, salary, employment and respect to the group such as women and minorities. The policies were introduced in 1960’s during the civil rights movement in the belief of providing equal rights to the group that has been ruled out by the society. In 1961 President Kennedy was the first to use the term “Affirmative Action” to make sure that all employees are treated in the same manner without discriminating them with their race, color, and national origin. The main reason to establish affirmative action is to increase the employment opportunities and
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, affirmative action is “an active effort to improve employment or educational opportunities for members of minority groups and women.” However, despite its well-intentioned policies, it has been the source of much controversy over the years. Barbara Scott and Mary Ann Schwartz mention that “proponents of affirmative action argue that given that racism and discrimination are systemic problems, their solutions require institutional remedies such as those offered by affirmative action legislation” (298). Also, even though racism is no longer direct, indirect forms still exist in society and affirmative action helps direct. On the other hand, opponents to affirm...
Affirmative action was created to allow minorities to have more opportunities in the workforce and in education. It still remains to be a debate whether affirmative action should be a necessary route even though we have made progress towards greater equality. The argument over Affirmative action has been going on for some time with two opposing sides. There is one side who finds Affirmative action as an opportunity to the less fortunate; those who are against have the belief that it promotes less qualified individuals rather than a person own merit.
The issue of affirmative action has been a controversial one since its inception. The law was developed during the 1960’s as a result of the civil rights movement and the need to address injustices committed against minorities throughout the United States history. There were multiple attempts to correct the inequities between the majority and the various minorities including the 13, 14 and 15th Amendments. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 allowed for the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to create rules to end discrimination. Affirmative action came into being with the executive order 11246 issued by President Johnson. The Civil Rights Act and President Johnson’s executive order have been updated throughout the years to address gender, disabilities, age and other characteristics that could be considered discriminatory.
The roots of affirmative action may be traced back to the early 1960’s, during the Civil Rights Movement. It was in 1961 that President John F. Kennedy issued an Executive Order that first introduced affirmative action. This order included an establishment that government contractors “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated fairly during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” (University of California Irvine) Over the years, there have been many adjustments to affirmative action, but they all reiterated the same general idea. This idea is that there would be equal opportunity for all qualified persons, and to take positive actions in order to ensure there would be equal opportunity for all. (University of California Irvine) Affirmative action has been successful, it has increased the number of recruiting and screening practices by employers, raised employers’ inclination to hire denounced applicants, increased the number of minority or female applicants and employees, and it increased the likelihood that employers will provide training and evaluate the...
I believe that as of right now, we should have affirmative action. I take the liberal perspective because I believe affirmative action is essential to society. Affirmative action is important because students with a disadvantaged background need the help, American society still gives priority to one racial group over another, and because we owe it to minorities to make up for discrimination against them in the past.
Affirmative Action is a policy in the United States of America. It is in use to help minorities get equal treatment in admissions policies for big businesses and higher educational programs. In one way or another, this policy affects almost every person in America. It affects people directly, and most commonly, indirectly. When this policy affects people, it usually affects them in a negative way. When Affirmative Action first started, it was a descent policy, but with changes in society, it has become a policy that does more harm than good. Since this is what the policy currently does, Affirmative Action should be out of use for every application it has a function for. So, this policy should be out of every law book in America to eliminate the negative impact that it is causing. Affirmative Action is outdated because it is turning into a reverse discrimination policy.
Grutter v. Bollinger challenged the law school and the other, Gratz v. Bollinger challenging the undergraduate college. The result was right down the middle for Michigan. Because of the Law School's individualized consideration of race they scraped by with a 5 to 4 vote, while the undergraduate school lost 6 to 3 because of its more obvious consideration of race. I noticed while reading Justice O'Connor's opinion for Grutter that it was very similar in Justice Powell's reasoning in Bakke. While O'Conner felt that the Law school's interest in having a diverse student body was enough to consider race as a factor along with other categories, she warned that after a point she believed affirmative action programs needed to have a cutoff point. She suggested that programs like these wouldn't be in the decades to
In the world today, racism and discrimination is one of the major issues being faced with. Racism has existed throughout the world for centuries and has been the primary reasons for wars, conflicts, and other human calamities all over the planet. It has been a part of America since the European colonization of North America beginning in the 17th century. Many people are not aware of how much racism still exist in our schools, workforces, and anywhere else that social lives are occurring. It started from slavery in America to caste partiality in India, down to the Holocaust in Europe during World War II.