Affirmative Action For People Of Color example essay topic

Affirmative action works, it helps minorities try to gain equal rights. There are thousands of examples of situations where people of color, women, and working class persons of all races who were previously excluded from jobs or educational opportunities, or were denied opportunities on certain institutions once admitted, have gained access because of affirmative action. Since these policies received executive and judicial support, vast numbers of people of color, and women have gained access they would not otherwise have had. These gains have led to very real changes. Affirmative action programs have not eliminated racism, nor have they always been implemented without problems.

The implementation of affirmative action was one of our biggest attempts at solving a problem, which we have previously chosen to ignore. In a variety of areas, from the quality of health care to the rate of employment, minorities still remain far behind white males. Their representation in the more prestigious professions (medical field, law, high appointed government, and executive possession) is still almost insignificant. Comparable imbalances exist for other racial and ethnic minorities as well as for women. Yet, to truly understand affirmative action, one must look at America's past discrimination to see why, affirmative action is still needed as much if not more then when it was installed. Discrimination In America The Declaration of Independence asserts, "all men are created equal,' yet America is scarred by a long history of legally imposed inequality.

Snatched from their native land, transported thousands of miles in a nightmare of disease and death and sold into slavery, minorities in America were reduced to the legal status of farm animals. A Supreme Court decision, Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857), made this official by classifying slaves as a species of "private property. ' Even after the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, American blacks, other minorities, and women continued not to receive some of the most elementary rights of citizenship. During the Reconstruction, after the end of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1868, making black citizens and promising them the "equal protection of the laws. ' In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, which gave blacks the right to vote. Congress also passed a number of civil rights laws barring discrimination against blacks in hotels, theaters, and other places.

However, the South reacted by passing the "Black Codes, ' which severely limited the rights of the newly freed slaves, preventing them in most states from testifying in courts against whites, limiting their opportunities to find work, and generally assigning them to the status of second class citizens white vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan began to appear, murdering and terrorizing blacks that tried to exercise their new rights, and any whites that tried to help them. "Legal' ways were also found for circumventing the new laws; these included "grandfather clauses', poll taxes, white only primary elections, and constant social discrimination against and intimidation of blacks, which were excluded from education and from any jobs except the most menial. In 1883, the Supreme Court declared a key civil rights statute, one that prohibits discrimination in public accommodations, unconstitutional. In 1896, Plessy vs. Ferguson, the Court declared that the state of Louisiana had the right to segregate their races in every public facility. Thus began the heyday of "Jim Crow' legislation. In Justice John Marshall Harlan's lone dissent, he realized it was a mockery.

He wrote, ' We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our peoples above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with a state of the law that, practically, puts a brand of servitude and segregation upon a large class of our fellow citizens, our equals before the law. This thin disguise of ' equal' accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead anyone, or atone for the wrong this day done. ' Not until sixty years later, in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas was this ruling overturned. Chief Justice Earl Warren expressed the unanimous opinion of the court by saying: "We cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy vs. Ferguson was written. In today's world, separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

This decision sparked racial tensions all across America. In 1957, President Eisenhower had to call federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, after the state's governor forcibly barred black children from entering white schools. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested and fined, for not moving to the back of a public bus, starting a series of boycotts by blacks of bus companies. A number of "sit ins' were held by blacks and Civil Rights followers in still segregated restaurants in the South.

Responding to those and other incidents, Congress passed a variety of new laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, particularly titles VI and VII, seem to prohibit any form of racial discrimination. Affirmative action existed in insignificance for years before current-day affirmative action was executed after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11246. Current day affirmative action was intended to promote greater equality of opportunity by expanding access and increasing inclusiveness. President Johnson, in his June 4 1964 commencement speech at Howard University, addressed the motivation behind Executive Order 11246, which he signed into law a few months after this speech. He said, "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ' You are free to compete with all the others' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.

' Adding, that the U.S. must have "not just equality as a right and a theory but also equality as a fact and equality as a result. ' In 1969, the Department of Labor exposed widespread racial discrimination in the Construction Department, so President Richard M. Nixon decided to incorporate a system of "goals and timetables' to evaluate federal construction companies according to affirmative action. This idea of "goals and timetables' provided guidelines for companies to follow and comply with affirmative action regulations. During the presidency of Gerald R. Ford, affirmative action was extended to people with disabilities and Vietnam veterans but there were no goals or timetables for these two groups. This type of affirmative action required recruitment efforts, accessibility and reviews of physical and mental job qualifications. President Jimmy Carter consolidated all federal agencies that were required by law to follow the affirmative action cooperate into the Department of Labor.

Before Carter did this, each agency handled affirmative action in its own individual way. Some were not as consistent as others were. He created the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program (OF CCP) in 1978 to ensure compliance with the affirmative action policies. The first Supreme Court case to directly deal with affirmative action was Regents of California vs. Bakke. Alan Bakke, a white male, was turned down for admission, even though his test scores and grades were higher that those of some candidates admitted through a "special' program. Bakke argued that he was a victim of reverse discrimination because he was white.

Four members of the Supreme Court took the view that admission to a state medical school must be on a completely "color blind' basis; another four contended that "a racial criteria may be used by a state for the purpose of overcoming the chronic minority under representation in the medical profession. ' The remaining justice, Lewis Power, had the controlling opinion in the case. Powell agreed in part with both sides. He believed that a "legitimate justification might exist for using race as a criterion in medical school admission,' yet he opposed "explicit' racial classifications.

Their final decision, which has guided many colleges' affirmative-action policies, said "institutions could use race in making admissions decisions but could not set aside specific numbers of places for members of minority groups. ' Another landmark case about affirmative action was United Steelworkers of America vs. Weber. Unlike Bakke, Weber deals with a private company who voluntarily created an affirmative action policy. Brian Weber, a white worker, was passed over for admission to a training program in favor of a minority worker with less seniority. He bought suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Supreme Court ruled against Weber on two grounds: 1) the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was aimed at relieving the plight of blacks, not whites 2) the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "did not intend wholly to prohibit private and voluntary affirmative action efforts.

' Affirmative action began to go downhill when Ronald Reagan and later George Bush came into office. Affirmative action lost a lot of momentum it had gain in the last few presidents and was more or less ignored by the Republicans in the White House and in Congress. Affirmative action was silently being "killed' by our federal administrators. But among this destruction there was one positive aspect, the passage of Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The Republicans was attempting to scare people into changing their party lines by misusing affirmative action. They were saying that affirmative action is nothing more than a quota or reverse discrimination.

Clinton supported affirmative action, in a speech given on September 4, 1995. In his speech he clearly states: "I'm against quotas. I'm against reverse discrimination. I'm against giving anybody unqualified anything they " re not qualified for. But I am for making a conscious effort to bring the American people together. "Further, Clinton added: "The purpose of affirmative action is to give our nation a way to finally address the systemic exclusion of individuals of talent, on the basis of their gender or race, from opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute.

Affirmative action is an effort to develop a systematic approach to open the doors of education, employment, and business development opportunities to qualified individuals who happen to be members of groups that have experienced long-standing and persistent discrimination. ' Today's Affirmative Action Affirmative action has had its greatest noticeable amount of success in city, state, and government jobs. Since the 1960's, the area of law enforcement witnessed the greatest increase in minority applicants, and in jobs offered to minorities. This should be viewed as an extremely positive thing, because prior to affirmative action, these jobs were almost completely closed off to minorities and woman. The influx has been greatest in the area of government, state and city, because this type of work is easier for affirmative action to watch over and regulate: since it is easier to enforce laws and regulations in government jobs and employment.

Affirmative action has experienced considerably less success in integration in big business. This is due to the fact that big business has been more resistant to affirmative action and harder to regulate. Because big business has the ability to cover their tracts and mistakes with money, in addition they support the elected officials by giving them donations for their campaign. Affirmative action is also needed to help women compete in today's corporate world. Black women in corporate America are still scarce: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistic's report for 1984, among the classification "executive, administrative, managerial, and professional, specialty,' there were only 1,474,000 black women 5.9% of the total, as opposed to 22,250,000 white women, 91% of the total number of working women in this category. Another area affirmative action addresses is preferential hiring programs.

Many times people of color have been excluded from hiring pools, overtly discriminated against, been unfairly eliminated because of inappropriate qualification standards, or have been rendered unqualified because of discrimination in education and housing. Court decisions on affirmative action have rendered illegal those qualifications that are not relevant to one's ability to do the job. They have also mandated hiring goals so that those employed begin to reflect the racial mix of the general population from which workers are drawn. There is no legal requirement to ever hire an unqualified person. There is also a mandate that in choosing between qualified candidates, the hiring preference should be for a person of color when past discrimination has resulted in white people receiving preferential treatment. Sometimes people and companies argue that affirmative action means the best-qualified person will not be hired.

However, it has been demonstrated many times in hiring and academic recruitment that tests and educational qualifications are not necessarily the best predictors of future success. This does not mean unqualified people should be hired. It means basically qualified people who may not have the highest test scores or grades, but who are ready to do the job may be hired. Employers have traditionally hired people not only on test scores, but also on personal appearance, family and personal connections, school ties and on race and gender preferences, demonstrating that talent or desirability can be defined in many ways. These practices have all contributed to a segregated work force in the 90's and now in the 21st century, where white males hold the best jobs, and minorities work in the least desirable and most poorly paid positions. Affirmative action policies serve as a corrective to such patterns of discrimination.

Opponents of affirmative action want to see the "most qualified' people be hired, regardless of sex, race, age, etc. However, a person's experience should be taken into consideration during the hiring process and if certain groups are blocked from competing, when they are finally allowed to compete they may have every other qualification, but will lack what they were blocked at competing in the first place (Cyrus, p. 265). And that alone could stop them from being hired, getting promoted or even getting a pay raise. While companies continue to permit discrimination in the hiring process, they are overlooking a very staggering reality. According to a Workforce 2000 study by the Hudson Institute for the U.S. Department of Labor, it is estimated that 85% of the 26 million net new American workers in this decade will consist of women, minorities, and immigrants. The companies that refuse to share power with those discriminated against may be shooting themselves in the foot, compared to the companies who choose and promote a more diversified workforce (Cyrus, p. 463).

Another argument raised against affirmative action is that individual white people, often white males, have to pay for past discrimination and may not get the jobs they deserve. It is true that specific white people may not get specific job opportunities because of affirmative action policies and may suffer as a result. This lack of opportunity is unfortunate; the structural factors, which produce a lack of decent jobs, need to be addressed. It must not be forgotten that millions of specific people of color have also lost specific job opportunities as a result of racial discrimination. To be concerned only with the white applicants who don't get the job, and not with the people of color who don't, I believe, is also showing racial preference. But how true is it that white male candidates are being discriminated against or are losing out because of affirmative action programs?

If one looks at the composition of various professions such as law, medicine, architecture, academics and journalism, or at corporate management, or at higher-level government positions or if one looks overall at the average income levels of white men one immediately notices that people of color are still significantly underrepresented and underpaid in every category. People of color don't make up the proportions of these jobs even remotely equal to their percentage of the population. They don't earn wages comparable to white men. White men are tremendously over represented in almost any category of work that is highly rewarded except for professional athletics. According to a 1995 government report, white males make up only 29 percent of the workforce, but they hold 95 percent of senior management positions. Until there is both equal opportunity and fair distribution of education, training and advancement to all Americans, affirmative action for people of color will be necessary to counter the hundreds of years of affirmative action that has been directed at white males.

It is hard to reasonably argue that white males are discriminated against as a group if they are over represented in most high status categories. Affirmative action is not a cure at all. It will not eliminate racial discrimination, nor will it eliminate competition the good jobs. Affirmative action programs can only ensure that everyone has a fair chance at what is available. I believe, the larger question to ask is: why are there not enough decent paying, challenging, and safe jobs for everyone? Why are there not enough seats in the universities for everyone who wants an education?

Expanding opportunity for people of color means expanding not only their access to existing jobs, education, and housing, but also removing the obstacles that prevent them from obtaining their goals. I believe affirmative action is the best shot they have in order to achieve their dreams.

Bibliography

Brown vs. Board of Ed. 347 US 483. US Sup Ct. 1954 California vs.
Bakke. 438 US 265. US Sup Ct. 1978.
Cyrus, Virginia. Experiencing Race, Class, and Gender in the United States. Second Edition. 1997.
p. 122 He bel, Sara; Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/15/2000, Vol.
47 Issue 16, pA 40, 5/8 p Pinkerton, James P. "Ending Quotas Should Help End Racism' in Los Angeles Times, 4 June 1995, p.
M 5 Plessy vs. Ferguson. 163 US 537. US Sup Ct. 1896 New York Times, "Excerpts From Clinton Talk on Affirmative Action' July 20, 1995, p.
A 9 Speech on September 4, 1995, quoted by Michael K.
Fris by, Wall Street Journal, September 6, 1995, p.
A 4 United Steelworkers of America vs. Weber. 433 US 193. US Sup Ct. 1979.