Affirmative Action in the Workplace

There are many supporters and opponents of Affirmative Action. The focus of Affirmative action is meant to be an attempt at equality throughout society. Every sector in America would be equal and unprejudiced. On the other hand, adopting affirmative action would force many employers to replace hard-working employees with those possibly less qualified simply due to their gender or ethnicity. Throughout history, people have been categorized into different groups. These groupings were based on certain characteristics people shared, whether it was their ethnicity, race, gender, or religion. Society is notorious for distinguishing among different groups and favoring one or two of them. Undoubtedly, this separation of peoples, led to increased tension between various groups. As time progressed, the conflicts intensified, and it became apparent that a change was necessary. So I intend to educate the reader on the origin of Affirmative Action; how it impacted the American society; is it still needed in today’s environment; what are some of the drawbacks or issues that came from implementing Affirmative Action, and finally what is the most beneficial aspect from Affirmative Action. One of the most famous quotes about Affirmative Action comes from President Lyndon Johnson who explained the rationale behind the use of affirmative action to achieve equal opportunity in a 1965 speech: “You do not take a person, who for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring

During the last part of this century, businesses and organizations have heavily relied on affirmative actions laws to ensure equal employment opportunities. The failure of this dependence upon legislation is that is doesn't address the full spectrum of diversity in the workplace (6). Affirmative actions laws have limitations, discriminating against people holding protected-class status such as women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans,

Throughout history, the affirmative action has been supporting women and minorities, which has has a reverse discrimination against white men. White men has mainly been seen throughout the years as the dominate individuals who has received a magnificent amount of assistance, respect, and much more compared to the "underdogs"! The "underdogs" (women and minority) has struggled during the last centuries with the right to vote, the right to fight, the right to equality, the right to be free, and the right to work.

Generations of families have suffered due unequal laws or prejudices set in place to prevent minorities from growing. Slavery, segregation, separate but equal laws, the trail of tears, failing ESOL classes, unequal pay and so much more effect today's youth and causing history to change slowly if at all. Affirmative action has good intentions and is very much needed in today's world however it sometimes fails doing what it was created to do.

In Professor William Shaw’s The Organization and the People In It, Shaw delves into the debate that is affirmative action. According to Shaw, “affirmative action means programs taking the race or sex of employees or job candidates into account as part of an effort to correct imbalances in employment that exist as a result of past discrimination, either in the company itself or in the larger society”(Shaw, p. 437). Affirmative action promotes the diversity of job opportunities for both genders and all races. Some of the opportunities can cause an unfair advantage to minorities when paired against equal or sometimes better-qualified white counterparts. This can become a moral issue by causing unfair advantages to some people. By attempting to level the playing field, affirmative action actually over compensates for potential discrimination and can place white males at a disadvantage. Affirmative action attempts to balance the application system for college or postgraduate work, however at the expense of some qualified students.

Affirmative action has had a number of results. In terms of positive outcome, affirmative action policies have helped to shape the climate of discussion about issues of equity in pay and opportunity. This has helped to share the way that companies have approach the issue. Opportunities for women and minorities have increased, especially at lower levels of management. There are seemingly still barriers to advancement into senior management ranks for many groups.

Before, going into this we need to look at the past discriminative policies adopted many companies, responsible for many acts of discrimination against minorities. Menial and low level jobs were offered to certain ethnic and minority groups. Even, woman was denied certain job categories on the ground of strength and their capabilities. This discriminatory policy adopted for so many decade has led to a situation where there cannot be a level playing field without taking certain affirmative action.

Some people would say that the policy of affirmative action in the workplace only creates positives like diversity and equality in jobs. But this is not the case. Affirmative action may create diversity, but the equality aspect of it is a little shadier. If one job applicant is highly qualified, but does not meet the requirements of affirmative action regulations, such as a white male, they might be passed up for a less qualified applicant, merely because they fit the affirmative action bill by being a minority or other historically underrepresented category of person. This program goes as far as to set quotas for how many minorities, disabled, women, etc. employers have to hire. Along with this, employers must also write and execute an affirmative action plan in order to comply with federal regulations. (Scott) All of these things are intended to create an environment of equality, but they are now actually doing the opposite by excluding qualified whites. Therefore, affirmative action is no longer a sufficient policy to create a diverse and equal workplace.

Racial discrimination occurs everyday to many different people. In America,the individuals who are usually discriminated against are the minorities like African Americans and Hispanics. Affirmative action is a policy that was created and has been claimed to be positive discrimination. The policy was created to give equal opportunity to groups of people who are usually discriminated against. Although Affirmative action has been named to be positive and support minorities, it is still unjust. There should be no positive aspects of racial discrimination. Many believe that it is only racial discrimination or racist if a caucasian person discriminates against a person of color but do not consider it racism if it happens to be the other way around. Racial Discrimination in any form is harmful which is why affirmative action policies are not correct.

Affirmative action has been the topic of debate for many years. It has been controversial because it has been said to be a form of reverse discrimination. This paper will discuss the purpose behind affirmative action, as well as, its various strengths and weaknesses. Also, this paper will look at the following issues surrounding affirmative action such as the incompetency myth ( are companies hiring less qualified people?), the impact on employment (what has changed in the work place?), the impact on women (how have their lives changed?) and the impact on employment law (what documents back up affirmative action?). Lastly, a discussion of affirmative action on an international scale, and what international documents have to say about

According to Raymond A. Noe, affirmative action is an organization’s active effort to find opportunities to hire or promote people in a particular group (Fundamentals of Human Resource Management 68). There are various arguments for and against affirmative action. Some believe that it gives certain groups of people an equal opportunity to find employment where they would otherwise be kicked under the rug. Others believe that even though it creates an opportunity for minority groups, the issue of reverse discrimination comes into play where once predominantly white male jobs offerings go to women and minority groups instead. The topic of affirmative action remains very controversial and

Affirmative Action programs were set in place to stop any discrimination in the workplace, making companies hire a certain percentage of minorities to fulfill their quotas. While this may seem like a positive, it has circumstantially brought along tremendous repercussions. As seen in chapter 8 of Nan Mooney’s book I Can’t Believe She Did That. Why Women Betray Other Women at Work an African American female, Sasha holds a well-ranked position in a white male operated company. The company ended up having to lay off 80% of their workers, and Sasha’s coworker told her she had nothing to worry about, because “she was black” and the company would not fire one of their only black workers. The two workers relationship immediately changed, and in

There have been many instances that the action has been taken or considered that it isn’t fair to that white worker. The reason being so is that conservatives say that it was or is a free ride on the American system. Many whites and minorities support affirmative action but at the expense of white worker will the white people accept? That’s where controversy begins.one instance is the case of Allan Bakke he at the time was much more classified to get in Davis school. The averages were 2.88 GPA and average admissions test scores of 46 in verbal, 24 in math, 35 in science and 33 in general knowledge. This case itself has bought a mixed result after the supreme court had decided a 5-4 decision. This brought a change in attitude on how to accept admissions from different races or ethnics. Those goals may back fire to those who its intended to protect. The chances that created in the education level back fired. In the Bakke case and Wygant vs Jackson Board of Education. The opportunity give minorities to keep their job even if they had less seniority. They laid off those who were thought it was necessary to be laid off. This provisions were sought to preserve those minority teachers and in the process to hire more of the minority teachers while laying off those teachers who had more seniority when necessary. The verdict of the Supreme court was that the layoff was unconstitutional due to violating the Equal Protection

To many, this made sense. Supporters of affirmative action asked, "why not let the government help them get better jobs?" After all, the white man was responsible for their suffering. While this may all be true, there is another question to be asked. Are they all truly responsible for the years of persecution that the African Americans were submitted to? Probably not. Does the person working in the cube next to me resent me knowing consciously that we are working side by side because of affirmative action and not because we both qualify to be employed there? Probably so. This type of work environment is not strengthening diversity, it tears it down.

I feel it is important for employers to make diversity and discrimination known within the workplace. Employers need to be aware that there is such thing as implicit discrimination. “This form of discrimination occurs subliminally without an individual necessarily even being aware of it” (Ruthergien, 2016, p. 22). If an employee is not taught what discrimination is, how will they know if they are committing an act of discrimination. Not all acts of discrimination are obvious or common knowledge. Knowledge is power and the more employees know about the topic, the more aware they will be and less likely to make the mistake in discriminating somebody. Employers should have management training that will aid in the prevention of making decisions that may be considered discrimination. “We must be able to invent and reinvent and re-engineer the