Laws For Affirmative Action Employment example essay topic

Affirmative Action has been law since 1961 when President John F. Kennedy signed a bill forcing government contractors to extinguish discrimination due to race, religion or national origin. Since that law came into existence, many changes have taken place to provide a broader scope of protection for what the government calls protected class members. The laws' intent was to afford underprivileged minority groups' equal opportunities for employment that were available to the white male. Although advantageous, the results generated detrimental effects as well.

In time, society finds ways to also experience personal gain and finds ways to dodge the laws, especially the laws that affect their perceived quality of life in the future. What started out as a way to create increased fairness in employment has influenced the way of life of every American far beyond employment. Affirmative action has been law since 1961, when President John F. Kennedy signed a bill forcing government contractors to cease discrimination due to race, religion, or national origin. Civil Rights reach back as far as 1879 in Ples sy vs. Ferguson.

Since that law came into existence, many changes have taken place to provide a broader scope of protection to what the government calls the "protected class". Originally its intent was to allow the opportunity to gain employment. The origin of Affirmative Action by Margureta Sykes and become full citizens of the United States. This has allowed an expansion of black men to achieve "middle class social status". Often good intentions passing into law to benefit the "total" America are misinterpreted by intelligent law makers and manipulated to award personal gain and find ways to dodge the laws, especially the laws that affect their financial future. Many decades ago it was very evident that black people had a difficult time landing jobs.

This is a very important aspect of the labor market disadvantage suffered by the black community considering the unemployment rate for blacks was twice as high as the unemployment rate for whites. Government was unable to ignore the issues any longer without a great penalty. Compassion to help the underprivileged also attributed to government making the first step to take action. President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925, which established the Presidents Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (Stephen Cahn).

The mission or tasking of this committee was to end discrimination in employment by government and its contractors and provide for treatment without regard to color, religion, or national origin. This was the beginning of what is called "Affirmative Action". Although this got the ball rolling, many provisions needed to be made to narrow the scope of the law. President Lyndon Johnson executed the added edge to expand the rights of black people and initiated the Civil Rights Law of 1964. This broadened the law to include any American agency or business that received federal assistance to abide by the same laws. Within months, Executive Order 11246 was implemented prohibiting discrimination for federal employment from race, creed, religion or national origin.

Two years later the order was amended to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex as well as the other laws already mentioned. For more than 20 years, the most comprehensive statutes on civil rights ever enacted in the U.S., banning discrimination in employment, voting, public accommodations, public education and all federally assisted programs. This was Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This amendment was the guidance that American leaders needed to change the policies under which schools, business and local state and federal government adopted a new era and developed new strategies in which "business" was conducted. In 1972 the Equal Employment Opportunity Act was implemented. Hiring and promotion of minorities has shown tremendous increase since this act was passed into law.

We are now seeing more women, white and black primarily, black men and even the American native Indian in the American workplace. Although this has attributed to the overall growth in achieving a more diverse workplace, it is not the free ticket for minorities to enter into the workplace in any area of work. Certain standards must be met before affirmative action can ever play a role in determining who is hired. This law was written to "aid" the underprivileged through employment. As an example, a black female cannot expect to submit an application as a nurse without meeting the qualifications and education required to perform the duties of that particular job.

Under the law as written in executive orders and interpreted by the courts benefiting from affirmative action must have relevant and valid job or educational qualifications. ("The Origins of Affirmative Action" by Marquita Sykes) This was now a concern that directly targeted the colleges and universities. Congress realized that the minorities must be given a better opportunity to receive the education to qualify for certain jobs. The leaders of higher education got involved and attempted to make a strong statement toward achieving diversity in education.

The problem that schools are learning the hard way is the law supports preferential treatment, not quotas. California schools learned this in the 1980's, the late 70's was actually when it was first recognized and the courts ruled unconstitutional to use a quota system. This ruling still provided a good opportunity to attract a diverse student body, but many minorities were not making the acceptable SAT score to enroll in the finer schools in the country. The University of Michigan has received a great deal of publicity with the lawsuits concerning racial discrimination.

The cases of Gutter vs. Bollinger involving University of Michigan's law school, and Grot z vs. Bollinger, involving the undergraduate program. The law school is up to for highly qualified White students were not accepted into the law program but black, less qualified students were accepted. The undergraduate program allows additional points automatically to minorities or the college entrance applications. The cases filed at the University of Michigan have demonstrated the intensity that affirmative action has on today's social. This has gained a massive amount of support for and against the policy at the University of Michigan.

Naturally, the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Campaign and NAACP are among the advocacy groups. The American Conservative Union, the Federation for American Immigration Rights and the Color-Blind America Group support the students bringing the lawsuit. The controversy and confusion brought on by this case has centered the U.S. Supreme Court to rule recently in favor of the University in saying that colleges and universities had compelling educational reasons for seeking a diverse student body and that they could take an applicants race into account to increase minority enrollment. Although this has pleased even the Bush Administration, there is bound to be scrutiny by the high court. In 1995 the vs. Supreme Court criticized the moral justification for Affirmative Action, stating that race conscious programs can amount to unconstitutional reverse discrimination, and even harm those they seek to advance.

This special interest in diverse student body in higher education has even considered eliminating the SAT and using the student ranking upon high school graduation. This recent shift in affirmative action appears to be the result of one simple thing: politics. A very important statement was made a couple of years ago that says, "We must stop looking for cheap, cosmetic fixes to our deeply rooted social problem". (Public Management by Melinda Carlton) It seems the decade of the 90's was leaning toward abolishing affirmative action and hold people accountable to their own merit by eliminating race as a factor and achieve by qualifications. Sen. Dole proposed legislation to ban preferential treatment in federal programs and the Clinton Administration was considering reform to affirmative action by supporting a reformed version that complies with the 1995 ruling by the Supreme Court. Critics viewed affirmative action as a departure from the principles of meritocracy and individual striving and as a policy that primarily hurts white men, who may have had no part in any past or present discrimination.

The reform never occurred and the trend / influences has impressions our political leaders away from abolishing affirmative action to the extent of empowering more benefit toward affirmative action as shown by the recent ruling of the Supreme Court with the University of Michigan ruling. A very strong statement was made in another country about affirmative action in that "wealth- creations purpose will not be saved best by forcing whites to wait for blacks to catch up". (African News Service Johannesburg) Logically this would retard the wealth creation process of business. Whites must be allowed to continue to create wealth as quickly as they can without impeding the freedom of blacks to participate in the process themselves. This is not a statement of disregarding the ranks of the disadvantaged. This is placing stronger emphasis on what is defined as disadvantages.

The color of skin does not appear to be a factor for education or labor force for many hears now and policies under EEOC make stipulations to the diverse hiring process. There is further argument that de-industrialization has impoverished inner cities and has led to resegregation of the country. The white race began establishing residency in the suburbs, which in turn has taken tax dollars away from the city, affecting the inner city school systems. Forcing the hand of the white men in America to employ less qualified applicants due to their color has caused resentment. Companies have experienced a decrease in profits and have not reached their productivity potential because of extra training costs that are required for the underprivileged. America has many programs to assist minorities to achieve social classes above poverty level.

When are we as Americans going to stop looking at color to see other underprivileged people that are in need of government assistance, not simple minorities?" Wouldn't it be more proper to include all race and gender in the poverty class in underprivileged and stop looking at race for justification? A more sympathetic Supreme Court, closing legal loopholes and vigorously enforcing anti-discrimination laws would help address the problem of racism within the middle and working class. Legal changes are not likely to help members of the poverty class whose circumstances are the result of structural changes in the economy. Training is the focal point in almost every skill development known to man.

The business owners must have trained employees to be able to turn a profit and keep America's economy out of financial disaster. Surveys taken from various businesses have stated that training should be funded by the employee; free to enter into employment on the basis that they find their own training by working for a minimal wage until properly trained and able to perform at company standard. Limitations enforced by laws for affirmative action employment as well as so many other laws that are costly to abide by has forced businesses to look for alternative strategies at reducing costs to sustain a profit. One of these ways is by taking the business to another country that does not employ such laws that set parameters of the applicants the company employs. All the efforts enforced by the government to provide a more diverse labor force have worked to many degrees. But as it 5 appears, it is diverse by other being gainfully employed by American businesses, taking the job away from the citizens of America.

This has led to a higher unemployment rate and more American based companies are finding ways to replace employees with machines and computerized equipment, which will lead to even higher unemployment rates.