AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Running Head : AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Pros and Cons of Affirmative Action

Ernesto Simon

Abstract

Affirmative action is a policy in which the previously disadvantaged due to discrimination receive priority . It came to existence as a remedy toward discrimination and then became a problem all by itself according to some theorists , who are opponents to it . Supporters believe affirmative action should be adopted to provide equal employment opportunity , but facts show that it does not . Affirmative action is a very controversial issue , which has been debated for more than thirty years

. Unlike discrimination , there are not so many laws against affirmative action , but opponents are indeed working on banning it wherever it is possible for them to do so

Pros and Cons of Affirmative Action

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Brief Overview of Affirmative Action

Origin of Affirmative Action

Views of Affirmative Action

People who benefit from Affirmative Action

Employment and Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity

Legal Issues of Affirmative Action

How to Stop Affirmative Action from Being Taken

Pros and Cons of Affirmative Action

Brief Overview of Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action is usually defined as an active effort to improve employment or educational opportunities for members of minority groups and women or one to promote the rights or progress of other disadvantaged people (Webster 's Third New International Dictionary Unabridged . Merriam-Webster , 2002

In practice , affirmative action is taken by giving women and people from a minority group priority . For instance , a company has an opening for a bookkeeper . On determining who should be hired , the company gives women and people from a minority group priority . This could also happen with promotion : only women and people from a minority group are likely to be promoted , and with education : women and people from a minority group have better chances of obtaining grants and scholarships that would enable them to attend college

Another way of illustrating how affirmative action is taken would be with a classroom in which some students receive a great deal of unfair punishments . One day it is brought to the teacher 's attention that she will be dismissed unless unfair practices are stopped . In an attempt to correct the past unacceptable behavior , the teacher starts treating those students with some kind of preference . In the beginning this will be certainly appropriate , as those students will need to feel that they are not ill-treated anymore

Origin of Affirmative Action

Affirmative action is believed to have come about as a remedy to the awful discrimination that regrettably used to take place . As a matter of

fact , according to T .H . Anderson (2004 ) in 1940 discrimination was tradition and in some states it was even law . Sad though it might now sound to us , the most educated and refined African-American did not have the rights the most illiterate and indecent white individual did (p . 2 Therefore , when discrimination became illegal in the United States affirmative action started to take place

By the mid-1970 's minorities and women were winning significant victories , which...