Reverse Discrimination For Women For Black Women example essay topic

Reverse Discrimination in Hiring, Article Review Tom L. Beauchamp, author of "The Justification of reverse Discrimination in Hiring", and James Rachels, author of "What People Deserve", both support reverse discrimination and promote the enforcement of policies derived from reverse discrimination as a solution to the unequal employment of minorities and women. Beauchamp's main moral reason for supporting preferential treatment is that in order that society will reach general equality among all races in the future, we must establish reverse discrimination now. He bases all his arguments are statistical findings from graduate percentages of women from Harvard to the comparison of percentages of women's medical school graduates to Germany. He argues that the reason for all these statistics was that all the positions were being filled through word of mouth and the interviews were conducted by white males (1.

Beauchamp, cc, 095). Therefore minorities and women never had the chance to apply for the job. And because of these cases reverse discrimination is a justifiable answer to racial balance in the future. Rachel's argument for supporting reverse discrimination rests on the concept of desert, giving reason to the title of his article, "What People Deserve".

He supports the role model plan, reverse discrimination is needed to place blacks in prestigious careers so that future generations of blacks will have someone to look up to and see that it is possible to become a lawyer, doctor, or other high profile careers. It would show that the white man is not the only person qualified for such a position (2. Rachels, cc, 0033). This argument therefore justifies reverse discrimination because it will reduce prejudice in the future as long as it is used now to set blacks as role models. Young blacks would then be motivated and work harder towards that career because they see that it is obtainable so they could be better prepared for competition from young whites. He argues that there are still many blacks who are poor and hold low income jobs while the higher income jobs are held by whites and as long as this continues old white stereotypes of blacks will remain the same.

If there were more black people holding prestigious jobs the old stereotypes will soon diminish because if would prove more difficult for whites to hold old stereotypes against blacks. However, Rachels does not analyze the effects of the person as an individual. If reverse discrimination was enforced everywhere, with the intention of creating equality in admissions and employment in the future, every white man would come to the conclusion that black people will never be fully qualified for any job because they were hired over a more qualified person, white man. That black man, and others hired will still undergo an excessive amount of torment from white co-workers.

Those co-workers might have recommended a white friend who was qualified for the job but find out later that a less qualified worker was hired instead because of enforced reverse discrimination. Many blacks would be tormented because of that and might be forced to quit because of all the psychological harassment. Rachels's next argument regarding admissions into law school is based on the Defunis case where a white student, Defunis, was rejected while one fourth of those accepted were minorities who weren't as qualified as he was. In the case Defunis and a black student's credentials were compared, Defunis had a rating of 720 while the black student had 700, they were both well over the minimum of 600 but the black student was admitted and Defunis was not.

But what gave Defunis the 20 point advantage? Did Defunis deserve to be admitted? Rachels's states that if those 20 points were earned through hard work then Defunis did deserve to be admitted, but if those 20 points were obtained simply because Defunis was fortunate enough to have been born into a white family with more advantages and resources then he did not deserve it. Whereas the black student had to work extra hard because he was born to a poor family where resources were hard to come by and succeeding was not deemed attainable where he came from then he deserved to be admitted. He states that preferential treatment in private businesses is just because they are allowed to choose who they want to work for them. The example he gives is suppose one has a book and decides to give it away.

One has the choice of giving the book to person A or person B. Both person A and person B want the book, yet one decides to give the book to person A. Person B is not entitled to complain since he had no right to it in the first place because the book did not belong to him and it was the book owner's choice as to who receives the book in the end (3. Rachels, cc, 0025). A company will choose whomever the see fit for the job according to their standards, meaning they are looking for someone specific, and they are allowed to do so, being a private company. So if one person was hired over the other it might be because of race it might not. Beauchamp's main moral reason justifying reverse discrimination were the statistics on mainly women and blacks while Rachels leaned more towards blacks and the role model plan where reverse discrimination would benefit future blacks by employing role models in prestigious careers. Rachels's reason is more justifiable because he actually provided a mechanism by which to go about to ensure equal employment in the future, which is through the role model plan.

Although he did not state much about what he would do to ensure the equality of employment for women, he only gave reason for reverse discrimination in favor of the black man. But what reasons would he give to justify reverse discrimination for women? for black women? The role model plan for the black man does not follow for women, black or white. Some white women could have been fortunate enough to have been born into a family where resources are available but are discriminated against because they are women and aren't considered strong enough to complete the same amount of work as a man could.

Therefore they will get paid less and would only be able to work lower ranked jobs and aren't able to move up. What plans does Rachel's have for them? Beauchamp, however discusses the statistics of mainly women and states that the guidelines set for affirmative action are not strong enough to support it and that all the statistics evidence he uses indicates that reverse discrimination is justified (4. Beauchamp, cc, 0098).

He states in his conclusion that because there is moderate racism and moderate sexism involved, policies derived from reverse discrimination would be the only solution to inevitable problems in the future. What Beauchamp fails to expand on is what should go about to enforce these policies derived from reverse discrimination. What can change how people view racism, prejudice, and discrimination? Rachels proposes a solution for the black man only but Beauchamp doesn't pose a solution at all, he merely shows statistics and gives reasons to why blacks and women aren't being hired in prestigious careers as much as white men are.