Policy Known As Affirmative Action example essay topic

Imagine a person has hopes of landing their dream job and is applying for a position at a very successful company. They have more than enough qualifications but for some reason do not get the job simply because the company had to hire a woman or minority to satisfy its policy. What policy you may ask, born to the civil rights movement three decades ago, affirmative action calls for minorities and women to be given special consideration in employment and education. Affirmative action is one of the many problems with today's society and should not be allowed to be used in any situation.

This policy is intended to give both parties an equal opportunity to be a successful individual and make it in today's society. It is morally wrong because the battle for equal rights has been won and favoring members in one group over another is totally unfair. Others see it as the only opportunity for minorities and women to rise up and obtain the same education and career opportunity as everyone else. Before writing this paper I had not known a lot about what affirmative action meant, but now I can say I strongly disagree with its meaning. I myself had a run in with affirmative action just recently in this past month. One of my close friends received an acceptance letter from the University of Michigan and I couldn't believe she got in because her score on the ACT test was very low.

She also didn't have very exceptional grades in high school, which meant she could have only gotten in because she was of Hispanic origin. Giving someone more rights and opportunities than others just because of a personal trait is not only unfair but totally defies everything that was fought for in the civil rights movement. Would giving someone an advantage in a situation such as education influence them not to try as hard if they were to have the same opportunity as everyone else? Robin Kelly stated: "Sadly, I run into many young people who do not have a sense of what is possible, a vis i on of what this country could become. Rather, they accept the current arrangements as an immutable given and figure how best to survive within them" (80). Kelly suggests that today's youth have no intentions of changing the world and only intend to live in it how it is.

No changes will occur if we continue to live the way we are now and equal rights will grow more and more extinct if affirmative action is not brought down. Many supporters of affirmative action see it as a gateway to increase diversity in a fair way that will not hurt anyone in the long run. It is viewed not only as fair, but it also makes up for hundreds of years that benefited whites and males. The most common misconception about affirmative action is that it offers unfair advantages to minorities and women. Many people believe that everyone has an equal opportunity, but supporters say that the playing field is not yet equal and it will not be equal until others realize it is not. In his article Roger Wilkins says: "Our national history on this subject is shot through with denials, the two most prominent of which are: first, that the treatment of blacks in this country hasn't been all that bad and, second, that the medicine required to cure it, therefore, need only be medium strong and administered over a fairly short period of time" (41).

He means even though these special circumstances give more females and minorities jobs each year, they still are receiving lower paying jobs and receive discrimination in work and other places. If there were fair opportunities out there today, then this policy known as affirmative action would cease to exist. A case that revolved around affirmative action recently occurred at the University of Michigan campus last year. Barbara Grutter, a white woman whose Michigan application was rejected, was very disgruntled when she heard the news of her rejection. She then hired a lawyer to present a case to the Supreme Court against the University's admission policy. Many people declared that the University's admissions policy, which uses affirmative action to select its students, is unconstitutional.

Soon enough, many protests were brought about by supporters and non- supporters, which heated the issue even further. A bitterly divided federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 5 to 4 in favor of the school's race-conscious admissions policy. The lawyers of Barbara Grutter are already working on her appeal against the university, which will bring the issue even more controversy. Politics have split this issue down the middle and it has been debated over countless times. President George W. Bush is just one of the strong political figures who strongly opposes the affirmative action plan.

He recently said his administration would back a legal fight against the system at the University of Michigan, where applicants with dark skin get extra points on their admissions criteria. This is viewed as totally wrong by some because they believe he was a beneficiary of a form of affirmative action when he was accepted into Yale. Michael Kinsley of TIME magazine recently said: "If our President had the slightest sense of irony, he might have paused to ask himself, "Wait a minute. How did I get into Yale?" (par. 1). They believe if it were not for him being the son of a famous political figure and president, he would not have been accepted to Yale because of a horrible GPA.

Bush, however strongly opposes that his father being president had anything to do with his acceptance. If this comment was really true, should President Bush be fighting for affirmative action or against it? People who disagree with the policy say that it is unfair to favor one race over another. They claim the ethics of this policy totally go against every principle this nation was built on since all men are supposed to be created equal. Walter E Williams argues "For the most part, post-World War II America has supported civil rights for blacks. Indeed, if we stick to the uncorrupted concept of civil rights, we can safely say that the civil rights struggle for blacks is over and won".

Walter is proclaiming discrimination was mostly abolished during the civil rights movement and to pick someone because of a personal characteristic represents reverse racism. People who oppose affirmative action are stereotypically seen as a group of angry white men, but when it comes down to the truth they are not the only people who make up the group. This group is made of women and many different races which all agree that they do not need a "head start" in order to succeed and they do not wish do be treated differently. The institutions that use affirmative action usually set goals for increased diversity and use recruitment and preference for achieving these goals. Many people see affirmative action clients as scavengers who do not earn or even make an attempt at what they receive. Basically they declare that colleges, businesses, and other associations should not be able to request an individual's race or sex when filling out an application or being recruited for a position.

If things were this way, everyone would be treated as equals and there would be no worries about affirmative action. Created three decades ago, this issue shows no sign whatsoever of dying off. Will this world ever stop fighting like children and realize that favoring one person over another is just making matters worse. Affirmative action has sparked rallies, protests, and court cases which have all tried to answer the same rhetorical question: why should people who all have the same rights be treated differently? Though I have no accountable say in what is wrong or right, I still agree with the President of the United States in saying affirmative action is wrong and should be eliminated immediately. Even though he is believed to have used a type of affirmative action, which would make him a hypocrite, I still hold my beliefs.

Bibliography

Kelley, Robin D.G. "Looking Backward: The Limits of self-Help Ideology". Yo' Mama " sDisfunktional! : Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1997.
78-102,195-200. Kinsley, Michael. "How Affirmative Action Helped George W". Times 21 Jan. 2003, 16 Mar.
2004.
Wilkins, Roger. "Why We Need Affirmative Action". The Virginia Quarterly Review 80 (2004): 41.
Williams, Walter E. "Affirmative Action can't be mended". Cato Journal 17 (1997): 1-10.