Affirmative Action 10 Essay Research Paper Affirmative

Affirmative Action 10 Essay, Research Paper

Affirmative Action

The history of affirmative action has its roots in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act provided the initial legal basis for affirmative action for women in the workplace. Affirmative action is a policy to encourage equal opportunity and to level the playing field for groups of people who have been and are discriminated against. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, affirmative action, “Is considered essential to assuring that jobs are genuinely and equally accessible to qualified persons, without regard to their sex, racial, or ethnic characteristics.”

Over the past few decades roles for women in the workplace have increased. Many of the predominately male occupations have increasingly become more diverse. Affirmative action helps to promote diversity in employment and equality between genders. The effectiveness of affirmative action and Equal Employment Opportunity legislation has been vigorously debated for years, with advocates citing gains made by women and people of color in pay, organizational representation, and organizational status. Women, in general, have been the main beneficiaries of affirmative action and will be the biggest losers if it is overturned. The number of women entering the professions, including medicine, law and accounting, has increased substantially in 30 years. Women of all races have increased their share of professional positions in corporations. However, women have yet to achieve equality in the workplace as the gap in wages continues. Nationally, women earn 74 cents for every dollar earned by men. A National Academy of Science Report found that a significant proportion of these wage gaps could not be explained by factors such as education or work experience.

Affirmative Action promotes the hiring of qualified people. It does not mean people should be hired just because they are minorities. It helps to broaden the range of people to be considered for employment in hopes of creating a more diverse applicant pool from which to choose. Groups of people are often stereotyped. In the case of sex stereotypes, these are attributes that are imparted to individual men and women simply by virtue of their sex. The impact of affirmative action on women may cause them to suffer the stigma of second-class citizenship as a result of preferential treatment, because they will be subjected to the presumption that they were hired not because of their qualifications but because of their gender. Affirmative action may therefore lead to the conclusion that the women hired under affirmative action are incompetent. If someone is thought to be hired or placed as a result of affirmative action efforts, then that supplies onlookers with a plausible and compelling explanation for the selection decision

independent of the job incumbent s qualifications for the position. Then the individual may be assumed to have been hired only because of her sex, with qualifications irrelevant to the selection process. Sex bias also has been demonstrated in decisions about pay raises, promotions, and employee utilization and training opportunities. Although sex may only be taken into consideration after hiring a person for their qualifications, it may only be assumed that they received their position because of affirmative action. Sometimes, affirmative action may create rather than alleviate problems for women by causing people to perceive them as possessing fewer of the characteristics deemed necessary for success in a traditionally male work context. If affirmative action promotes these negative conceptions, then there is a distinct possibility that rather than being a remedy for sex discrimination, it can be yet another contributor to the problem.

Often, sex discrimination can be viewed through the Glass Ceiling . The Glass Ceiling refers to invisible, artificial barriers that prevent qualified individuals from advancing within their organization and reaching full potential. The term describes the point beyond which women managers and executives are not promoted. Although the barriers exist, it is hard to imagine how anyone can believe that treating people

differently, or not promoting someone based on their sex is morally acceptable or financially responsible. Affirmative action policies are instrumental in providing women and minorities with the tools to help break through the glass ceiling, and create a more diverse workforce.

Affirmative action policies provide equal opportunity to those groups who have been systematically denied it. Affirmative action is not the source of discrimination, but the vehicle for removing the effects of discrimination. Affirmative Action plans do not discriminate against anyone competing for any position. They actually increase the pool of qualified applicants by using aggressive recruitment and outreach techniques. The policies developed from the Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action legislation do make a difference and are still necessary to assure a more equitable workforce. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Title VII is presumed to promote the hiring it is designed to protect. The logic underlying this presumption is simple: by making employers liable for failures