Affirmative action

Affirmative action

The quest for racial and ethnic equality is high on the nation 's social-policy agenda (U .S . Commission on Civil Rights , 2001 . Our society 's foremost governmental and economic institutions are besieged with demands for affirmative action - that is , for policies designed to correct persistent racial and ethnic inequalities in promotion , hiring and access to other opportunities . Equally forceful are the demands to do away with affirmative-action quotas ' Conservatives bitterly oppose affirmative action , whereas liberals feel that it is necessary if our society is to undo the effects of

past discrimination (Horowitz 1999

In the United States , legally sanctioned segregation no longer exists but this has been true only in recent years . Before the civil rights movement of the 1960s , de jure segregation was common in the United States , especially in the southern states . The system that enforced segregation was supported by Jim Crow laws in many states . This term refers to laws that enforced or condoned segregation , barred blacks and other minorities from the polls , and the like . This system was in effect for about 100 years , from after the Civil War until the early 1970s During that period the so-called color line was applied throughout the United States to limit the places where blacks could live , where they could work and what kinds of jobs they could hold , where they could go to school , and under what conditions they could vote

At first the color line was an unwritten set of norms that barred or restricted black participation in many social institutions . By the turn of the century , however , segregation had become officially sanctioned through legislation and court rulings . This official segregation was rationalized by the separate but equal ' doctrine set forth by the Supreme Court in Plessy v . Ferguson . Under this doctrine , separate facilities for people of different races were legal as long as they were of equal quality . In addition , de facto segregation and the existence of a job ceiling ' based on race served to keep blacks in subordinate jobs and segregated ghettos

We saw earlier that Supreme Court struck down the doctrine that separate but equal ' facilities and institutions did not violate the constitutional rights of African-Americans . It did so largely because social-scientific evidence showed that separate institutions are inherently unequal . Similar arguments have been advanced in affirmative-action cases that have reached the Court . If a fire department in a city whose inhabitants are 30 percent black and Hispanic has no firefighters from those minority groups , it can be demonstrated that there is a pattern of discrimination that can be changed only if the institution is required to hire a certain number of minority applicants - a quota - within a designated time . However , members of the majority may feel that they are victims of reverse discrimination in which they are being penalized for the wrongs of earlier generations Thus , difficult choices remain : Should employers mix or replace decisions based on experience and merit with decisions based on race and ethnicity ? In essence , the courts...