Does Affirmative Action Solves Racism Essay Research

Does Affirmative Action Solves Racism. Essay, Research Paper

Does Affirmative Action Solves Racism.

“That teacher was selected for affirmative action reasons.” That is how I first heard the term used — implying a lack of ability on the part of a teacher at my high school. The phrase “affirmative action” was first used in a racial discrimination context in Executive Order No. 10,925 issued by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. This executive order indicated that federal contractors should take affirmative action to ensure that job applicants and employees are treated “without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” The civil rights legislation of the 1960s followed in the same vein. Kennedy’s executive order implied equal access and nothing else. The system that has evolved since is a perversion of the original intent of affirmative action. Affirmative action is wrong and will not help solve the problems minorities face. The reason it is wrong is because affirmative action is discrimination. It has no place in today’s society because it does more bad than good

A shift in emphasis from equality of prospective opportunity toward racial quotas was already under way by the time the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was debated in Congress. Quotas and the right of minorities and women to have a “correct” percentage of their population employed have since become rallying cries for civil rights activists. Affirmative action as it has been applied is detrimental to the operation of the job market, to white males, and to the groups it is supposed to benefit.

When an employer hires anyone because he or she is a minority, even if someone else is more qualified to do the job, it s discrimination. When whites are discriminated against and minorities are being discriminated for, there is no justice whatsoever and no wrongs are righted. Affirmative action legalizes discrimination and discrimination of this sort has been illegal in this country for a very long time. Also, if this discrimination continues, racism in the United States may become worse. This type of discrimination draws lines between races and emphasizes their differences rather than their common citizenship. Affirmative action bolds the lines of diversity rather than creating unity.

Affirmative action is very dangerous to the American people. If an employer hires an under-qualified worker, that worker puts others at risk if he or she doesn’t have enough experience to know what to do and what not to do. It also creates a great financial and economic risk for employers, especially for small businesses. It is not a sound business practice to pay inexperienced people to do work they’re not qualified for. Imagine what you would feel like if you couldn’t get a job just because you re a white man and not a Hispanic man. Racism is aggravated by it. That is the very thing we trying to prevent. It is possible that because of affirmative action, racism will grow and continue to grow until history repeats itself.

Many people say affirmative action is ok because it cures past discrimination. Discrimination wasn’t ok when blacks were the ones getting the short end of the stick. Therefore it’s not ok when whites are discriminated against. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Consequently affirmative action doesn’t make discrimination ok just because it’s against blacks instead of whites. The concept just isn t logical.

Affirmative action in college is the most unjust practice this country has ever seen. At ivy league colleges the median GPA of applicants is close to 4.0 and S.A.T.’s are close to 1300, minorities are let in with GPA’s less than 3.0 and S.A.T.’s less than 1000. The only way for colleges to achieve ethnic proportionalism is to downplay or abandon merit criteria and to accept students from typically under represented groups, such as blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians, over better qualified students from who are whites and Asian Americans.

Opponents of racial preferences point out that minorities may receive preferences in admissions, but they don’t receive similar treatment on their report cards. They question the fairness of placing minorities in schools for which they are not academically prepared.

Differences among racial and ethnic groups in academic achievement, economic performance and social stability can be accounted for by differences in cultural values, rather than inherited genetic abilities or the effects of racial oppression. Affirmative action assumes that racism is the cause of differences in academic performance between blacks and other groups and abandons merit in favor of affirmative action in order to achieve social justice. If college admissions were based only on merit, it would not lead to equality of results:

+ Studies show that if admissions to the University of California at Berkeley were by grades and test scores only, a majority of students would be Asian and only 1 to 2 percent black.

+ Data from the College Board, which administers the Scholastic Attainment Test (SAT), show that the racial gaps on the verbal section of the test are equaled or exceeded on the math section.

+ Independent studies show that the SAT predicts college performance equally well for all groups, and is even slightly “biased” in favor of blacks.

+ College Board data shows that academic differences aren’t due to po