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Affirmative Action Today
Affirmative action programs promote equal representation of minority groups in the American workplace and public schools. It seeks to remedy the effects of discrimination of specific groups through the force of laws and regulations. In practice, affirmative action can be a passive effort or an aggressive approach to correct historic patterns of racial discrimination. Unfortunately, through the years, affirmative action has changed from equal opportunity for everyone to preferential treatment of minority groups. The original concept involved only passive efforts such as encouraging institutions to make deliberate attempts to include minorities in employment and in college enrollment. In recent years, affirmative action has become an aggressive effort that requires and measures minority representation. As a result, affirmative action has produced undesirable problems in the American culture.
The term "affirmative action" was first used in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. He signed Executive Order 10925 that stated "the contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during their employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin" (qtd. in Hall 898). In 1954, the Brown decision [Brown v. Board of Education] required racial desegregation in schools and other public places. The Brown decision led to "the enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, soon supplemented by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act" (Graglia 26). This was the beginning of public awareness to the racial discrimination issue.
Many blacks today still feel the effects of racial discrimination. Henry Gates Jr., a black Harvard professor of the Humanities, reveals in his article "Two Nations.. Both Black," how racial discrimination still plays a part in society:
We [blacks] are still humiliatingly vulnerable to racism,
in the form of best police harassment, individual racial
insults from waitresses and attendants in stores, the
unwillingness of taxi drivers to pick us up, systematic
discrimination by banks and bank loan officers, wage
discrimination in the workplace, and our perception of
a `glass ceiling' in the corporate world. (135)
Affirmative action was created to give blacks equal educational and employment opportunities. It has helped many black people attend institutions of higher education and obtain better job opportunities, but it has failed to reach the goal of alleviating racial discrimination.
Racial discrimination is prevalent in the hiring practices used by businesses in America. Today, the best qualified applicant applying for a job will not necessarily be the applicant that is hired. All public, private or non-profit businesses with more than 15 employees must comply with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's "Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures." The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has the authority to prosecute any business for discrimination "if the percentage of minorities hired is much lower than the percentage of minorities applying" (Brimelow 82). Supporters of affirmative action insist that blacks are trainable even if they are not the best qualified candidate. "In some situations in which blacks are severely underrepresented, meeting a numerical goal may require selecting a specific nuraber of blacks that are `basically qualified' to do the job" (Ezorsky 41).
Opponents of affirmative action argue that blacks who get the jobs do not get them on their own merit but obtain them because of the color of their skin. Some employers have to resort to hiring underqualified applicants over qualified applicants in order to satisfy an affirmative action program. Failure to meet numerical goals may cause some businesses to suffer grave consequences. In Detroit, the Michigan state legislators pressured the Detroit Symphony Orchestra into hiring more blacks by threatening to take away 1.3 million dollars in state funding. The Detroit Symphony's usual hiring process of "blind" auditions, to prevent racial discrimination, was then abandoned to ensure black employment. Rick Robinson, a black bassist, was hired and the state funding was preserved (Flick 109).
Racial discrimination does not cease once a black person is on the job. Affirmative action has attached a stigma to black success. One woman, who was a direct beneficiary of a major corporation's affirmative action program, complained, "If anything, you feel like you are under a microscope and have to constantly prove yourself by overachieving and never missing the mark" (Monroe 22). Blacks that have gained opportunity think it has undervalued their achievements (Hall 898). "Far too often, white colleagues . . . see blackness as a sign of inferiority, our [blacks] meal ticket into the middle class as an Affirmative Action quota" (Gates 135).
Affirmative action has caused some blacks to cling to their victim status rather than face their own inadequacies. Some black opponents of affirmative action maintain that blacks are "dependent on racial-preference programs rather than hard work" (Monroe 23). An example of this happened in Alabama. A female, black teacher was fired for failing a mandatory competency test five times over the course of three years. She then filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Lamar County Board of Education. The lawsuit was based on the fact that the test failed a disproportionate nuraber of blacks. The teacher was awarded three years back pay and returned to her job after her victory in court (Brimelow 96). Affirmative action should be used to increase opportunity, determined by ability. It should not guarantee personal success because of color.
White people today also feel the effects of racial discrimination. They contend that employers are in fact discriminating against white applicants on the basis of race. However, if equal representation of minority groups is to be achieved, employers must take race into account when hiring. In "Affirmative Discrimination", Lino Graglia points out: "Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act] required, not that employment decisions be made without regard to race, but that they not be made without regard to race" (28).
Opponents of affirmative action proclaim that whites are experiencing "reverse discrimination". They feel an innocent third party is paying for the historical wrongful acts of others. Without argument, those who object to affirmative action agree that blacks "have been subjected to . . . decades of slavery and then decades of second-class citizenship" (Fish 130). Yet they ask, "But why me? I didn't own slaves; I didn't vote to keep people on the back of the bus . . . Why then should I be the one who doesn't get the job?" (136). Using discrimination to end discrimination is an obvious contradiction. Racial discrimination has a tight grip on American society. Blacks and whites alike concede that it is still rampant despite affirmative action's attempts to alleviate it. Affirmative action programs were established to fight racial discrimination. That need is still here today because affirmative action has not achieved its purpose. Affirmative action is an imperfect solution to the problem of racism. However, it is important to recognize that affirmative action has contributed greatly to the diversification of schools and businesses. It has played a big part in making America far richer in opportunity for minority groups than it was three decades ago. If it could be utilized as originally intended, people of different genders, races, and ethnicity would be treated as equals in the American workplace. The ideal of a "color-blind" society is a honorable and worthy goal. ®)@¯
Works Cited
Brimelow, Peter, and Leslie Spencer. "When Quotas Replace Merit, Everybody Suffers." Forbes 15 Feb. 1993: 80-102.
Ezorsky, Gertrude. Racism and Justice. New York:Cornell, 1991
Fish, Stanley. "Reverse Racism or How The Pot Got to Call the Kettle Black." The Atlantic Nov. 1993: 128-136.
Flick, Rachel. "Does Affirmative action Really Work?" Readers Digest Aug 1991: 109-114.
Gates, Henry Louis. "Two Nations..Both Black." Forbes 14 Sept. 1992: 132-138.
Graglia, Lino A. "Affirmative Discrimination: A Color-Blind Society Was the Goal of the Great Civil-Rights Leaders of the Fifties and Sixties. How Did That Idea Get Transmuted Into a Demanding and Counterproductive Nurabers Game?" National Review 5 July 1993: 26-31.
Hall, Patrick A. "Against Our Best Interests: An Arabivalent View of Affirmative Action". American Libraries 22 (1991): 898-902.
Monroe, Sylvester. "Does Affirmative Action Help or Hurt?" Time 27 May 1991: 22-23.
Affirmative Action
Introduction--Affirmative action is used to have equal representation of minority groups
I. Background
A. Past History
1. J. F. Kennedy
2. Laws
B. Affirmative Action Today
1. Discrimination against blacks
2. Affirmative action has helped
Thesis Statement: Affirmative action has helped more black people attend institutions of higher education and obtain better jobs but has failed to reach the goal of alleviating racial discrimination.
III. Major Points
A. Hiring Practices
1. Basically qualified
2. Unqualified workers
B. On the Job
1. Special hire
2. Dependance on affirmative action
C. Reverse Discrimination
1. Race neeRAB to be considered
2. Whites not getting jobs
IV. Conclusion--Racial discrimination still exists and is not used as it was intended.
Affirmative action programs promote equal representation of minority groups in the American workplace and public schools. It seeks to remedy the effects of discrimination of specific groups through the force of laws and regulations. In practice, affirmative action can be a passive effort or an aggressive approach to correct historic patterns of racial discrimination. Unfortunately, through the years, affirmative action has changed from equal opportunity for everyone to preferential treatment of minority groups. The original concept involved only passive efforts such as encouraging institutions to make deliberate attempts to include minorities in employment and in college enrollment. In recent years, affirmative action has become an aggressive effort that requires and measures minority representation. As a result, affirmative action has produced undesirable problems in the American culture.
The term "affirmative action" was first used in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. He signed Executive Order 10925 that stated "the contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during their employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin" (qtd. in Hall 898). In 1954, the Brown decision [Brown v. Board of Education] required racial desegregation in schools and other public places. The Brown decision led to "the enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, soon supplemented by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act" (Graglia 26). This was the beginning of public awareness to the racial discrimination issue.
Many blacks today still feel the effects of racial discrimination. Henry Gates Jr., a black Harvard professor of the Humanities, reveals in his article "Two Nations.. Both Black," how racial discrimination still plays a part in society:
We [blacks] are still humiliatingly vulnerable to racism,
in the form of best police harassment, individual racial
insults from waitresses and attendants in stores, the
unwillingness of taxi drivers to pick us up, systematic
discrimination by banks and bank loan officers, wage
discrimination in the workplace, and our perception of
a `glass ceiling' in the corporate world. (135)
Affirmative action was created to give blacks equal educational and employment opportunities. It has helped many black people attend institutions of higher education and obtain better job opportunities, but it has failed to reach the goal of alleviating racial discrimination.
Racial discrimination is prevalent in the hiring practices used by businesses in America. Today, the best qualified applicant applying for a job will not necessarily be the applicant that is hired. All public, private or non-profit businesses with more than 15 employees must comply with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's "Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures." The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has the authority to prosecute any business for discrimination "if the percentage of minorities hired is much lower than the percentage of minorities applying" (Brimelow 82). Supporters of affirmative action insist that blacks are trainable even if they are not the best qualified candidate. "In some situations in which blacks are severely underrepresented, meeting a numerical goal may require selecting a specific nuraber of blacks that are `basically qualified' to do the job" (Ezorsky 41).
Opponents of affirmative action argue that blacks who get the jobs do not get them on their own merit but obtain them because of the color of their skin. Some employers have to resort to hiring underqualified applicants over qualified applicants in order to satisfy an affirmative action program. Failure to meet numerical goals may cause some businesses to suffer grave consequences. In Detroit, the Michigan state legislators pressured the Detroit Symphony Orchestra into hiring more blacks by threatening to take away 1.3 million dollars in state funding. The Detroit Symphony's usual hiring process of "blind" auditions, to prevent racial discrimination, was then abandoned to ensure black employment. Rick Robinson, a black bassist, was hired and the state funding was preserved (Flick 109).
Racial discrimination does not cease once a black person is on the job. Affirmative action has attached a stigma to black success. One woman, who was a direct beneficiary of a major corporation's affirmative action program, complained, "If anything, you feel like you are under a microscope and have to constantly prove yourself by overachieving and never missing the mark" (Monroe 22). Blacks that have gained opportunity think it has undervalued their achievements (Hall 898). "Far too often, white colleagues . . . see blackness as a sign of inferiority, our [blacks] meal ticket into the middle class as an Affirmative Action quota" (Gates 135).
Affirmative action has caused some blacks to cling to their victim status rather than face their own inadequacies. Some black opponents of affirmative action maintain that blacks are "dependent on racial-preference programs rather than hard work" (Monroe 23). An example of this happened in Alabama. A female, black teacher was fired for failing a mandatory competency test five times over the course of three years. She then filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Lamar County Board of Education. The lawsuit was based on the fact that the test failed a disproportionate nuraber of blacks. The teacher was awarded three years back pay and returned to her job after her victory in court (Brimelow 96). Affirmative action should be used to increase opportunity, determined by ability. It should not guarantee personal success because of color.
White people today also feel the effects of racial discrimination. They contend that employers are in fact discriminating against white applicants on the basis of race. However, if equal representation of minority groups is to be achieved, employers must take race into account when hiring. In "Affirmative Discrimination", Lino Graglia points out: "Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act] required, not that employment decisions be made without regard to race, but that they not be made without regard to race" (28).
Opponents of affirmative action proclaim that whites are experiencing "reverse discrimination". They feel an innocent third party is paying for the historical wrongful acts of others. Without argument, those who object to affirmative action agree that blacks "have been subjected to . . . decades of slavery and then decades of second-class citizenship" (Fish 130). Yet they ask, "But why me? I didn't own slaves; I didn't vote to keep people on the back of the bus . . . Why then should I be the one who doesn't get the job?" (136). Using discrimination to end discrimination is an obvious contradiction. Racial discrimination has a tight grip on American society. Blacks and whites alike concede that it is still rampant despite affirmative action's attempts to alleviate it. Affirmative action programs were established to fight racial discrimination. That need is still here today because affirmative action has not achieved its purpose. Affirmative action is an imperfect solution to the problem of racism. However, it is important to recognize that affirmative action has contributed greatly to the diversification of schools and businesses. It has played a big part in making America far richer in opportunity for minority groups than it was three decades ago. If it could be utilized as originally intended, people of different genders, races, and ethnicity would be treated as equals in the American workplace. The ideal of a "color-blind" society is a honorable and worthy goal. ®)@¯
Works Cited
Brimelow, Peter, and Leslie Spencer. "When Quotas Replace Merit, Everybody Suffers." Forbes 15 Feb. 1993: 80-102.
Ezorsky, Gertrude. Racism and Justice. New York:Cornell, 1991
Fish, Stanley. "Reverse Racism or How The Pot Got to Call the Kettle Black." The Atlantic Nov. 1993: 128-136.
Flick, Rachel. "Does Affirmative action Really Work?" Readers Digest Aug 1991: 109-114.
Gates, Henry Louis. "Two Nations..Both Black." Forbes 14 Sept. 1992: 132-138.
Graglia, Lino A. "Affirmative Discrimination: A Color-Blind Society Was the Goal of the Great Civil-Rights Leaders of the Fifties and Sixties. How Did That Idea Get Transmuted Into a Demanding and Counterproductive Nurabers Game?" National Review 5 July 1993: 26-31.
Hall, Patrick A. "Against Our Best Interests: An Arabivalent View of Affirmative Action". American Libraries 22 (1991): 898-902.
Monroe, Sylvester. "Does Affirmative Action Help or Hurt?" Time 27 May 1991: 22-23.
Affirmative Action
Introduction--Affirmative action is used to have equal representation of minority groups
I. Background
A. Past History
1. J. F. Kennedy
2. Laws
B. Affirmative Action Today
1. Discrimination against blacks
2. Affirmative action has helped
Thesis Statement: Affirmative action has helped more black people attend institutions of higher education and obtain better jobs but has failed to reach the goal of alleviating racial discrimination.
III. Major Points
A. Hiring Practices
1. Basically qualified
2. Unqualified workers
B. On the Job
1. Special hire
2. Dependance on affirmative action
C. Reverse Discrimination
1. Race neeRAB to be considered
2. Whites not getting jobs
IV. Conclusion--Racial discrimination still exists and is not used as it was intended.