Affirmative Action Stereotypes

Affirmative action policies are passionately debated by everyone from educators and politicians to ordinary citizens, all who hold differing opinions on both the necessity and validity of the policies. There is no doubt affirmative action is an emotional topic and deals with the

To add diversity, the University of Texas decided to modify its race neutral policy. Now the university would use race for admission decisions. The University of Texas continued to follow the rule that the top ten percent of high school students would be automatically admitted into UT. This rule accounted for 81% of 2008 's freshman class. The other 19% of applicants could still be admitted by good GPA, high-standardized test scores, family conditions, leadership, and race (FISHER v. UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS).

The University of Texas at Austin is a world renown school with an acceptance rate of 40.2% as of 2013. Abigail Fisher, a white woman from Texas, sued the University of Texas for racial discrimination in the university’s admission program. Ms. Fisher lost her district court case and the Fifth Circuit Case three to zero; but the Supreme Court accepted her appeal for another trial. Due to Ms. Fisher not being able to attend The University of Texas, she was accepted into Louisiana State University shortly after. At LSU, she filed the lawsuit against the University of Texas to prohibit the university to use race as a factor in the future admission process.

Two people stand in a room looking at a vibrant painting and receive a totally different image. This is something we all realize can happen. It is our different perspectives that make us valuable too each other. When trying to solve a problem or create a new idea, we need each other to bring forth considerations and concepts that would never occur otherwise. This concept is something most of us grasp in theory, yet it never ceases to confound and confuse us if someone draws a conclusion tangent from ours when presented with the same information. This situation lies at the heart of the argument over affirmative action. Policies that are viewed by some as righting past wrongs are viewed by

The equal opportunity that affirmative action provides has also increased the amount of minority applicants applying to each school. It has “resulted in doubling or tripling the number of minority applications to colleges or universities, and have made colleges and universities more representative of their surrounding community” (Messerli). Since the playing field has been evened, it has encouraged more of those who are disadvantaged because of their ethnicity to apply for and get admitted into college. However, the quotas cause schools to admit under qualified students of minor races who don’t meet the limit over highly qualified students who’s race has reached the limit.

The lifelong dream of a virtuous student, acceptance into a prestigious college of choice, crushed by the prejudice of a single law. Hopes upon hopes of attaining one’s dream job, demolished due to the same impassive law. Affirmative action, a national dilemma, continues to crush the dreams of many across the country; although meant with noble intentions, affirmative action offers an ineffective, impractical, and useless rectification to correct a historical social evil, the growing imbalance of different ethnicities. Instead of augmenting this common problem, affirmative action plays a critical role in reverse discrimination, equating race to diversity in opinion, and destroying the idea of meritocracy.

Affirmative action has been one of the most effective tools to correct a history of inequalities in our nation’s history against people of color and women. The huge advances made during Civil Rights era still has not completely eradicated centuries of sexism and racism. Opportunities for advancement for those previously omitted remain few and far between in comparison to their counterparts. Race and gender are not, nor should they be, the only selection measure but they do warrant to be one of the many influences considered in college admissions, hiring, and awarding of grants and other forms of financial aid. Many prestigious and well regarded school universities such as Harvard and Stanford have been at the forefront of this ideal. Nonetheless, affirmative action remains a heavily contested social issue in the United States.

Coupled with previous information on why Affirmative Action policies can help promote diversity and give minorities improved opportunities overall is a statement from former Secretary of the United States Condoleezza Rice. Rice emphasized on how Affirmative Action has given her the perfect opportunity to prove herself in academics, in a time and place where African-American women were not taken seriously. Rice goes on to say that “I myself am a beneficiary of a Stanford strategy that took Affirmative Action seriously.”(Rice) Given the opportunity Rice excelled in academics especially in government where she rose up the rank and became Secretary of State under the Bush administration. Even President Barrack Obama excelled at an intuition that used Affirmative Action to propel qualified minority applicants. Comparatively these reasons alone help identify how Affirmative Action plays a key role in giving opportunities to

I learned interesting facts about our own culture. The thing I found interesting was that majority of the class didn't know that California banned affirmative action enrollment in universities. I thought it common knowledge since it was banned in 96 if I remember correctly, which 20 years have passed, but there still is this misconception that minorities are being admitted due to race. I think some states still have enrollment based affirmative action, so I understand that there would be misconception since some lawsuits going on about the topic. I had a feeling that majority was going to answer that they believe universities use affirmative action, but it was still surprising to me because I didn't want to be

As a testament to the next discussion point of opportunities, especially within the realm of college admission, I have experienced firsthand the opportunities presented by affirmative action. As a low-income, first-generation college student, Virginia Tech had offered me a full scholarship based solely on merit and financial need. As a “minority” according to Virginia Tech, I had an

March 6th, 1961 Affirmative Action policies in higher education were implemented (Infoplease). Affirmative Action was designed to provide equal access to universities for historically underrepresented minorities. The argument of whether Affirmative Action should be decimated is a simple one. Students who have the academic credentials and earn their way into college deserve to be accepted. For no reason should previously excluded minorities gain unfair leverage in an attempt to “right past wrongs”. But with Affirmative Action banned in only eight states, we are left with two questions; how exactly Affirmative Action affects the culture within universities to have it seen as an unjust policy, and can diversity continue to survive without this program.

Eleanor Norton, once a delegate to the district of Columbia in the United States of America once said that “affirmative action is the most important modern anti-discrimination technique ever instituted in the United States. It is the one tool that has had a demonstrable effect on discrimination. No one who knows anything about the subject would say it hasn 't worked. It has certainly done something, or else it wouldn 't have provoked so much opposition”. This means that affirmative action is a modern anti-discrimination technique that has been more effective or it would not have been opposed by people who are against this policy. This is a policy which has helped minorities get into college and get hired for quality jobs. It ensures they will not journey through an unfair process due to the color of their skin or what their origins might be. This policy does not only benefit minorities but also America’s economy. Moreover, enforcing affirmative action policies in higher education and higher quality jobs will help combat discrimination and increase minority admissions and employment resulting to a better American economy.

Affirmative action is one of the measures that was taken in order to minimize the social gap that has been present due to the past history that South Africa (SA) has, the Apartheid era presented different forms of racial oppression to black South Africans whereby, white people were favoured at the expense of black people, and this resulted in a huge welfare gap between black and white people. With this apartheid regime, the SA government adopted a Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) program intended to redress the inequalities that the regime had previously created through the implementation of Affirmative Action (AA). Some argue that, AA is a moral way of discriminating between job applications based on race and gender, however some are in view and agree with this AA measure. In this essay, the topic of morality will first be discussed, and will go on to further discuss morality in the context of AA, furthermore, the essay will look at contradictory views on AA and will highlight why businesses should indeed be morally required to select qualified black male and/or female

Affirmative action is controversial due its issue of whether the generation of today should pay for the past injustices done to certain ethnicities. It questions the constitutionality of its existence and whether it perpetuates racial discrimination. Although affirmative action greatly promotes diversity and exposes diverse perspectives in an educational field, it’s time to realize its modern predicaments and visualize how to better progress terms of admission for the future of the diversified generations of America. Thus it is vital to address the reasons why prolonging affirmative action hinders the creation for better opportunities to those at a disadvantaged.

Affirmative action is the improving of educational and job opportunities for members of groups that had not been treated fairly in the past. Affirmative Action came to be following the Civil Rights Movement to treat years of discrimination and to promote equality, though as John Fobanjong denotes in his article Affirmative Action, some policy makers sought only to improve diversity statistics, not to level the playing field. This nationwide program makes race a qualifying factor in college and job applications: it’s in place to encourage diversity because according to Issues & Controversies’ Affirmative Action: Are Affirmative Action Programs Necessary, minorities represent less than their percent of the population in academic careers. Even though the “1964 Civil Rights Act, a landmark law that banned discrimination based on race, sex, religion, or national origin in schools,” was put into place, Affirmative Action, a program that uses race in college admissions, still continues (Affirmative Action: Are Affirmative). Regardless of surrounding law, Affirmative Action is fundamentally flawed because there is no cause-effect relationship between skin color and income, an underlying assumption of the program. Affirmative Action blankets all minorities, whether lower, middle, or higher class, labeling entire races “disadvantaged”. Furthermore, as covered in John Johnson and Robert Green’s book titled