Affirmative Action Policy example essay topic

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". This quote was taken from our country's Declaration of Independence. This quote stands at the core of America's collective beliefs. The promise of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" has drawn many immigrants to America's shores. Has America fulfilled these promises to all of its citizens? Do all who live here have the same opportunities regardless of race, creed or color?

Has America truly come so far in diversity that discrimination is a thing of the past? I think not if in 2003 we still hear "the first black person to do... ". anything. If in this day and age there are still white people that are amazed by how articulate Colin Powell is then no we have not come far enough. Colin Powell is a product of affirmative action and a firm believer in the policy. Ask your average American if they have an opinion about affirmative action and chances are they will say yes but would they be able to explain what Affirmative Action is. Chances are they will say it has something to do with quotas, which it does not.

What is Affirmative Action and is it still necessary? Affirmative Action has no clearly defined meaning. According to the classical definition, affirmative action occurs whenever people go out of their way (take positive action) to increase the likelihood of true equality for individuals of differing categories. Affirmative Action is a national policy of trying to level the playing field for all citizens. Affirmative Action was created as a system to help achieve racial justice in America. It is acknowledged that the two ways to bridge the gulf between Blacks and Whites are through education and employment opportunities.

"To be black in a white society is not to stand on level and equal ground. While the races may stand side by side, whites stand on history's mountain and blacks stand in history's hollow. Until we overcome unequal history, we cannot overcome unequal opportunity". As of late, affirmative action programs have come under fire for supposed unjustified set asides or preferential treatment claims.

Claims of supposed "quotas" have stigmatized the program. The policy was not intended for Blacks alone, although it was thought they would benefit most from the policy. "For many whites, affirmative action is seen as a program for blacks and thus a threat to whites. No matter that white women have been the chief beneficiaries of these programs". Have these programs helped or hurt the cause for equal opportunity? Have they achieved their goal of racial equality in employment and education?

Should the programs be totally discarded or just revamped? This is a very sensitive subject for most Americans. While most choose to believe that America is truly a land where race does not matter, our history and our present shows a very different picture. The constitution was written to confirm equal rights and freedoms for all yet slavery was also included in this revered document.

The irony of this document still has ramifications today. Our country has been trying to deal with our past apartheid by teaching all to forget it. We are told, blacks don't deserve reparations and whites should feel no guilt. But it is a very important part of our history that still shapes racial relations today. How do you insure that the ancestors of former slaves have the same opportunities as the children of their former master? This is exactly what Affirmative Action has attempted to do.

The term "affirmative action" has been traced to Franklin Roosevelt's presidency. He became the first president to have a person of color in his cabinet in the person of Mary Macleod Bethune. Roosevelt's inclusion of blacks in both his cabinet and New Deal programs have led blacks to vote predominately Democratic since his presidency. The most established affirmative action program has been in existence since 1965.

Lyndon Johnson's Executive Order 11246 mandated that "any organization receiving a federal contract in excess of a certain figure (currently $50,000) with more than a certain number of employees (currently 50) should have a written plan that documents how closely the utilization of people of certain categories matches the availability of qualified people in that category". When utilization falls short of availability, the organization must articulate its plans for improved performance. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs is in charge of enforcement of the policy. Affirmative Action employers are implored to take measures to ensure that they are actually achieving the desired goal of equality and diversity. Discrimination appears in many forms, which makes a company's goal of maintaining diversity even harder. They need to be proactive, not simply reactive.

Affirmative Action policy has received its limitations and power from cases that have reached the Supreme Court. In Griggs vs. Duke Power, in 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court approved a statistical approach to the discrimination law, meaning when a qualification standard excludes blacks disproportionately, the employer is required to validate the standard, to demonstrate that it fairly measures ability to perform the job. In 1978, in Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke, the U.S. Supreme Court rules against quotas but, to foster diversity in education, approves the consideration of race and ethnicity as a "plus factor" in admissions. In 1979, in US Steelworkers vs. Weber, the US Supreme Court rules against a white steelworker's claim of reverse discrimination and held that employers have an "area of discretion" to employ minority preferences to eliminate imbalances in their workforce. These cases enabled voluntary affirmative action policies to be upheld as well as setting precedents for future cases. There has also been severe limitation of the policy in recent years due the tone of the current administrations as well as recent court decisions such as Adarand vs. Pena.

Adarand vs. Pena held that the strict scrutiny applied previously to state race conscious affirmative action must apply also to congressionally authorized programs. Using diversity as a reason for employment decisions can now be hotly contested. Unlike President Clinton who advocated we should have a policy of "mend it, don't end it", most republicans as witnessed by the Reagan and both Bush administrations. Senator Dole even reversed his long time support of Affirmative Action when it was deemed not popular while he was running for President.

This year, President Bush has spoken against the University of Michigan's admissions policy. Being an underrepresented minority brings an applicant an additional 20 points. If that is so egregious, how about also abolishing additional points for children of alumni. The two kinds of racism most commonly found in employment are overt and institutional. Overt racism takes place only if harm is inflicted or a benefit withheld because of the perpetrator's racial bias against the victim. Institutional racism occurs when a firm uses a practice that is race- neutral but that ultimately has an adverse impact on blacks as a group.

Examples of institutional racism would include, "last hired, first fired" and selection by seniority ranking. These two practices have historically had a negative effect on black employment. Yet another powerful tool of institutionalized racism is job selection by personal connections. The advantage of the widespread recruitment method to whites is very great, for their employed white friends and relatives lead them to remunerative positions.

Lacking ties to whites, blacks tend to be isolated from the networks in which connections to desirable employment are developed. The handicap of exclusion from the white pipeline starts early in life. One study shows that for a young male high school graduate the best job route is through relatives. A 1989 comparative study by anthropologist Mercer L. Sullivan of three neighborhood groups of young men in New York-ethnic white, Hispanic, and black- showed the importance of personal connections for success in the labor market. "The labor market advantages of the white youths over their peers in the two minority neighborhoods derive not from their greater investment in human capital but rather from their personal networks". I can speak from personal experience in regards to personal connections.

I am the only Black female trader out of 75 in my firm. I was alerted to the opening by, at the time, the only Black male sales trader at the firm. Had it not been for the referral by my friend I never would have known about the opening because it was never advertised. Discrimination can also occur with an absence of malice. Most women in majority male industries complain about a sense of exclusion from "male only" activities which colleagues indulge in such as golf or attending male only venues.

Women are not included in the excursions specifically because they are women but often business discussions take place during these excursions. In a study conducted in July 2001, Catalyst, a nonprofit organization, found that most women but especially women of color on Wall Street are still haunted by subtle acts of discrimination. 65% of the women polled felt they had to worker harder than men. 51% felt they were paid less than men who do similar work.

Only 32% felt promotions were handed out fairly between men and women. "Wall Street is a particularly tough nut to crack for women of color. While it is difficult being a woman in the still-white- male-dominated business, women of color seem to have two strikes against them". With this knowledge comes the realization that there needs to be systems in place which would allow one to detect the inequities and resolve to make the work environment more inclusive.

In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson recognized that minorities needed to be given the tools and the opportunities to thrive in America. "You do not take a person who had been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him up to the starting gate of a race and then say", You are free to compete with all the others", and still justly believe you have been completely fair... ". Has the gap between white and black wealth closed since 1965? Not by much if you look at the census figures.

In 2000, the mean salary for a white male was $54,354 whereas for a black male it was 37,773. The disparity between males and females not including race was even more disconcerting. In workers over the age of 25 with year round jobs and over 5 years of college, males averaged $73,323 while females averaged $47,051. One in every seven white children under the age of six lives below the poverty level, one of every two black children does. The data does not lie. Obviously, there is still a gaping hole between reality and our goals.

The problem is attitudes and beliefs about blacks and other minorities are slow to change... If your opinions of a race are based on hearsay and what is seen on the evening news then opinions have no chance of changing. For the most part, America is still a racially segregated country. Your opinions are formed based on what is known.

If Blacks are constantly seen in domestic roles and portrayed as criminal deviants on television then that is the idea that White America will have in their collective conscious. Blacks and whites live in different parts of the city and their children go to separate schools. Educational opportunities vary dramatically in US public schools. The inner city student can find drugs more readily than a computer lab while the more affluent suburban student is hooked on the Internet and signing up for advanced courses. Recent studies have shown that SAT scores are not correlated to race but to the income of the parents. "Average family income rises with each hundred-point increase in SAT scores...

Within each racial and ethnic group, SAT scores increase with income". When combined with other unstructured screening practices, such as personal connections and alumni preferences, standardized testing creates a random barrier for many otherwise qualified students. To completely eliminate race as a factor in admission decisions would lead to a possible future segregation of universities and colleges as is witnessed by the decrease in minority enrollment in California's top tier campuses. This drop in minority enrollment has been due to California's passing of Proposition 209.

Proposition 209 excludes race and ethnicity as a factor in college admissions. In terms of education, the concept of merit has been used often. When people speak of admissions based on merit alone they tend to forget all of the data and surveys which show using test scores as an indicator of how a student will perform in college has not been reliable. Now that all of the valid reasons for the continuation of affirmative action have been revealed, it is only fair that the criticisms of the program should also be revealed.

First off there are many who feel that we have advanced far enough to end the policy. There are also those who argue against statistical representation. They believe that it is unrealistic to have balanced representation of minorities in each sector of the workplace. They believe that some minorities are better suited to certain jobs. The success of other minorities in contrast to African Americans has also been noted when speaking of abolishing affirmative action. The success of other persecuted groups has suggested to some individuals that the fault for the depressed state of blacks may lie not in racism but in blacks themselves.

This is an unfair assessment. Blacks had to deal with severe legalized racism and white immigrants profited from their oppression. "Without such a combination of immigration and white racism, the Harlem's and South Chicago's might have become solid working class and middle class communities with the economic and social resources to absorb and aid the incoming masses of black Southerners, much as the European ethnic groups have been able to do for their newcomers". Some also believe affirmative action reinforces white prejudice about Black incompetence. AA programs do not require employers to hire unqualified blacks. As a matter of fact in some cases the workers may be overqualified.

Many anti affirmative action policy naysayers also believe that only upper-class blacks are benefiting from the "preferential treatment" leaving the underclass blacks behind. That is not so. America is a country where money is the great equalizer. If a black family has money then chances are that they opportunities their wealth has attained them such as a better education for their children is what got their child into a better school and not affirmative action.

Meritocratic critics believe that justice in the workplace is exemplified by selection according to merit standards. Hence they claim that racial preference violates the rights of more qualified white candidates. They also include those who advocate training instead of affirmative action and ignore the fact that even now blacks and women with good qualifications do not do as well as white men in the labor market. Hundreds of billions of federal dollars have been spent on training programs for the disadvantaged over the last thirty years, but the results in terms of increased earnings for the trainees have not been impressive. Yet another criticism of affirmative action is the stigma that is supposedly placed on minority beneficiaries. Preferential treatment is said to often lead to self-doubt, dependency, and entitlement.

Do Black professionals who work in a majority white world feel this stigma? This question was posed to X, a graduate of Auburn University as well as Harvard University; he also acts as a recruiter for Harvard. Mr. X has an engineering degree and is based in Washington DC. He initially declined my request to be interviewed but after much pleading, he consented. When asked why he was so reluctant to be interviewed, he stated he was uncomfortable with the topic. He realizes he is a product of Affirmative Action but has mixed feelings about the program.

"Affirmative Action with all of its issues has been the only avenue blacks have had to break into employment sectors they have been shut out of for decades". His personal story was very similar to a lot of Black executives. He constantly feels that he has to work harder than his colleagues and does feel that people assume Harvard accepted him because he is a Black man. When asked about his recruiting for Harvard, he made mention of the "hoopla" regarding Michigan's admissions policy.

The University of Michigan as well as all of academia has been under fire since a young white woman filed suit against the university alleging reverse discrimination. "Harvard is committed to supporting efforts to maintain a diverse student body. You know, it's interesting to me that the white women who filed the complaint would have the audacity to say she has been discriminated against. Does she have people follow her around stores or have clients inform you that they love Jay-Z in an attempt to break the ice? I don't even listen to rap. I am a huge jazz fan.

Yet this is what I have to contend with. There are hundreds of white people that get into Harvard every year. If I can help Black, talented, promising students get into those halls, I've done my job". Mr. X seemed very bitter and when I questioned him on it he agreed. "Maybe I've been in the corporate world too long. It takes a lot out of you trying assimilate in every way possible but the one thing that makes you different is the first thing that is seen".

Mr. X has seriously begun thinking about starting his own firm. After speaking with Mr. X, I began to question why is it automatically assumed that the white man is so qualified for every job they have? The burden of proving competency should be placed on them. "Sex and race stereotypes in combination with sex and race labeling of jobs foster a presumption that white men obtain customarily male jobs because they are the most qualified, although most obtain their jobs partly through personal contacts. Mr. X's mixed feelings about Affirmative Action are indicative of many in the black community.

As a matter of fact, the two highest-ranking black officials in President Bush's cabinet have differing opinions. Colin Powell is in favor of Affirmative Action while Condoleezza Rice opposes it. Even Justice Clarence Thomas, an obvious beneficiary of Affirmative Action opposes the policy. Which leads one to wonder if those who oppose the policy are so caught up in their "white" existence that they have forgotten how difficult it is in the real world for the average black person? Without Affirmative Action, we would most assuredly be in a very precarious position. What can be done to eliminate racism or at least lessen the effects?

All would agree that the goals of affirmative action are to reward merit, achieve diversity, end discrimination and to avoid or eliminate special privilege. Affirmative Action present day is obviously not doing all that needs to be done to bridge the gap between the races. Many feel that affirmative action is no longer necessary because there are laws that prohibit discrimination. Laws alone are ineffective when the behavior that they forbid is not confined to a small part of the population, when the behavior goes on behind closed doors, when violations are difficult and expensive to prove, and when the penalties are not easy to apply. If discrimination is discovered then a complaint can be filed against the person or company. There are drawbacks to this course though.

If a complaint is filed then the person may be labeled as a troublemaker. This can follow a person throughout their career. The second drawback is that the burden of proof falls on the person who files the complaint. How can a black applicant find out whether a job has truly just been filled?

Unfortunately filing a lawsuit is the last resort. So what can be done to fix the present day system? First of all, all jobs should be advertised. That would lessen the harmful effects of lack of personal connections for Black people but would also give other minorities and whites outside the sphere of personal connection a chance as well. Yet another way to overhaul the system would be to shift away from a reliance on tests as a means of distinguishing between applicants. Obviously the present day system of test taking is not working and needs to be revamped.

In terms of the work place, tests should be limited to screening out individuals who could not learn to perform competently with adequate training and mentoring, or be simply discontinued as part of the selection process. Instead of relying on standardized tests, the new system of performance based selection would focus decision makers' attention on finding the most creative and adaptable people available as opposed to just hiring good test takers. In terms of education, Texas' Ten Percent Plan might be a good model. The Ten Percent Plan admits the top 10 percent of the graduating class from every high school in the state to college. The ten per centers have a higher freshman grade point average than those admitted based on traditional SAT type tests. Education is the most important tool in achieving fairness in America.

Without a decent education, an individual's chances of finding gainful employment are significantly decreased. Our efforts to reform affirmative action should definitely be focused in this arena. Affirmative Action remains the most effective way to make sure America does not turn into a two-tiered society of permanent haves and have-nots. Our nation has decided to try to sweep its illicit past under the rug and forget it. That is dangerous.

What is forgotten can happen again. The Jews are never told they shouldn't teach future generations about their Holocaust. They are never told that was in the past just forget it. Why are Blacks told to forget their history? My great grandfather was a sharecropper. My great grandmother's father was her master.

My mother remembers having to go to Black only restrooms when driving down south to visit our family. My mother is only 50 years old. This is my family's history. I don't want to forget.

America owes the descendants of slaves reparations. Our ancestors never got their forty acres and a mule. They were denied the American dream that their blood, sweat and tears made possible. Affirmative action has been the only way that the workforce has been integrated. At what point have the benefits of affirmative action been scattered so broadly that they actually diminish rather than enhance opportunities for blacks, the group the policy was originally designed for? Perhaps the problem is that we are just putting a band-aid over the bigger issue.

America needs to deal with its racial issues instead of saying there aren't any. It is because of a legacy of unequal treatment that we now must permit the institutions of this society to give consideration to race in making decisions about who will hold the positions of influence, affluence and prestige in America. For far too long the doors to these positions have been shut to Negroes. If we are ever to become a fully integrated society, one in which the color of a person's skin will not determine the opportunities available to him or her, we must be willing to take steps to open those doors. I do not believe that anyone can truly look into America's past and still find that a remedy for the effects of that past is impermissible. -Justice Thurgood Marshall.