Affirmative Action example essay topic

Affirmative action has been controversial since the day it was first referenced, March 6, 1961, by President JFK issuing Executive Order 10925 (Infoplease. com). Affirmative action is race and gender neutral assurance against discrimination. The intended effects of President Johnson's enforcement of affirmative action were to eliminate discrimination and ensure equality for all races / sexes when applying for jobs, admissions, or promotions. However, it became apparent by the late 70's that what was actually evolving was reverse racism; meaning that minorities defined under affirmative action were given preferential treatment due to their minority characteristics. The most famous example of the corrupted version of affirmative action is the Bakke case in 1978. Bakke was a white applicant who had been denied two years in a row by a medical school who had accepted less-qualified minority applicants.

The medical school had an admissions policy that reserved 16 out of 100 places for minorities (Brunna). The most recent case would be the University of Michigan case. UMI's undergraduate admissions program automatically gives 20 points, on a 150 point scale, to Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans. UMI regularly admits minority students with test scores and credentials lower than that of its many denied white applicants. (Greenhouse). As such legalities began to arise, so did a backlash against affirmative action.

Conservatives find the system a "zero-sum" game that opens doors for minorities while it shuts doors for whites. Conservatives also resent the idea that unqualified minorities are getting a free ride on the American system. "Preferential treatment" and "quotas" have become expressions of contempt. The main argument of conservatives is that some minorities who had also experienced terrible adversity and racism, such as Jews and Asians, made the American system work for them without government handouts (Brunna). Liberals argue that America was a very different place for the European immigrants and those who arrived in the chains of slavery. Historian Roger Wilkins points out that "blacks have a 375 year history on this continent: 245 involving slavery, 100 involving legalized discrimination, and only 30 involving anything else" (Brunna).

According to the liberals, slavery was just the beginning of racism in America. This takes into consideration the fact that Jim Crow laws and lynching survived well into the 60's and that subtler forms of racism persisted well past the civil right's movement. Also, liberals point out that the conservative argument about minorities threatening the jobs of whites because of affirmative action only highlights the reality that white men are still the undisputed rulers of the roost when it comes to salaries, positions, and prestige (Brunna). As evident in the Bakke, UMI, and many other cases still popping up, affirmative action was a great, and even fair, concept that was abused and corrupted by society. Also evident, in the conservative and liberal arguments, is that affirmative action has no universal definition. Affirmative action is utilized differently from case-to-case and, as a result, has become an ineffective method of racial equality.

The states of California and Washington have gone as far as to abolish all forms of affirmative action state-wide to make room for more effective programs of racial equality (Infoplease. com). Also evident is the fact that concepts of even the purest intentions can easily be corrupted and manipulated and produce much unwanted circumstances. This could mean that instead of issuing a nation-wide affirmative action program, it might be more effective to just deal with discrimination on a case-by-case scenario.