Arguments Against Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action is one of the many social issues facing America today. Affirmative action was signed into place in 1961 by President Kennedy and allows minority groups or people who face discrimination to become employed or get an education that is equal to that of a white male. Groups that Affirmative Action aims to help are women, blacks, Latinos, and people with disabilities. While these policies were signed to slowly rid the workforce and schools from discrimination, it hurts people who do not face discrimination, specifically whites. Many white men and women lose special opportunities to work or go to college because of certain standards that the Affirmative Action laws require. Universities and the military require a certain number of minorities in order to meet the standards and have a more diverse atmosphere. An example of this is the California V. Bakke supreme court case of 1978.

Many whites who opposed the Civil Rights movement as a whole also opposed affirmative action. Although affirmative action was designed to make up the difference for the position of America's minorities, many white conservative Americans believed that it was "reverse discrimination". Many colleges, students, and workers went to court to remove this action. How affirmative action worked was tweaked after a law suit by a white man, Allan Bakke, where he was suing the University of California at Davis Medical Medical School for rejecting him and in turn, accepting a less qualified minority-group student for the spot. Anti-affirmative action protests started to pop up on different University grounds, and the discussion spread. Although the court case, Bakke v. University of California, ruled in the favor of Affirmative Action, the conservative movement had put the system in widespread question.

Affirmative Action is defined as, “positive steps aimed at increasing the inclusion of historically excluded groups in employment, education and business” (American Association for Affirmative Action, 2012). Affirmative Action was put into place in initially by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, and then was redefined in 1965 and 1968 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Affirmative Action is most well-known for ensuring people of specific races, ethnicities, and religions are not discriminated against for certain jobs. Affirmative action is thought to even the market for potential job applicants, as well as to remove preference and barriers in the market. "The purpose of affirmative action is to give our nation a way to finally address the systemic exclusion of individuals of talent on the basis of their gender or race from opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute” (American Association for Affirmative Action, 2012).

Affirmative action is a long going battle with social and political conflicts focused mostly in education. The Universities of Texas, Michigan and Washington were challenged in recent years due to their controversial court cases all from affirmative action. With the court taking the side of acknowledging diversity in education as a priority, the decision made by the court will continue on with many controversial debates on diversity and whether the policy should be eliminated indefinitely. Even though this will not put an end to the policy soon, the long road to equality will be a bumpy ride with prolong positive and negative effects. I hope affirmative action would be changed or eliminated in the near future because it causes problems within

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

I will try and keep the stance on affirmative action at a neutral at the moment until after the synthesis. I also believe I have gotten a bit confused between the original document for the progress report, with a paragraph for each of four sources, and the new two pages instead. I will do two pages of the four sources together in a synthesis.

While Affirmative Action policies in existence have aimed to combat discrimination, they have not contributed fully to establishing fairness and equality in their implementation. These legislations execute reverse discrimination in an attempt to undo the evils of oppression in the past, while using racial preferences as a means to award recipients over academic achievement.

Affirmative Action needs to become a more widespread topic of conversation amongst the millennial generation so that the peer group can realize that Affirmative Action is not helpful, and is in fact, very hurtful to students and potential job applicants. Affirmative Action is when a decision is made by an employer, college/university, and other outlets to how and who will be hired for a specific job opening, admission to a college/university, etc. This is a hurtful process to people, specifically women and minorities, due to the key fact that acceptance of something should not be grounded in gender or race and should be grounded in skill level and

The United States of America has long been a country divided by race. Hate has pervaded her existence since her conception, and now today’s society is forced to deal with those issues. Minorities have suffered at the hands of the white male majority for centuries as the social activities of the old war were brought to the new colonies, only to ferment and continue to affect the lives of all who lived within her borders. There is no doubting that this continued discrimination is a problem; however, the question arises with how to deal with it. Legislation has been passed to remedy the situation, yet has been seemingly ineffective. Affirmative action has caused problems without fulfilling its

Today, affirmative action is trying to treat people equally by unequally treating others to solve the problem when in fact creating more problems. The synonyms for the term “affirmative action” is anti-discrimination, equals right policy, and fair treatment. However, does the term live up to its true meaning of equal opportunities? Affirmative action has been a controversial topic ever since President Johnson issued the Executive Order in 1965. As stated, the order would increase the numbers of minorities in jobs and schools nationwide. As a minority myself, I do not think the policy longer applies to today’s jobs and education systems, but instead does the complete opposite. Others will say, “the third fallacy is, affirmative action does not

Social movements regarding racial and gender equality are becoming frequent news stories in the United States. While discrimination may not be as prominent as it was in the past, many individuals feel it still lingers within our society’s roots and gives unfair advantages to certain groups. One policy meant to counteract this is affirmative action. Focusing on jobs and education, affirmative action is a policy meant to provide opportunities for members of racial and ethnic minorities in order to eliminate discrimination (Macionis, 417). However, as with many social policies, it is a controversial and debated topic. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the policy of affirmative action against Barbara Gruttner who thought that the University

At the Affirmative Action debate at Irvine Valley College, there was positive and negative aspects of the event, but overall was a fantastic group of debaters and topic! The most prevalent issues I had were their pace and articulatory faults. Although the debater’s topic and speeches were effective and written well, it was difficult to hear them clearly at times. A common dilemma that occurred multiple times, would be that the speaker saw that they were running out of time and started to speed up their pace. It made the speech sound rushed and as they spoke faster, their words would combine. Leading to the problem with their articulatory faults of muffled month, as if their tongue could not keep up with their mind. (Ross and Leonard 219) I

For company’s or college admissions looking at applicants, to show affirmative action is no longer a useful tool and only merit should be considered during the process.

Affirmative action, the policy that suppose to bring equal opportunities for everyone. The world today is a world where many opportunities passes by only because of race and gender. Mostly jobs and higher education. Discrimination is the cause of affirmative action because woman and minorities was being discriminated against while trying to enter a school or get a job or other opportunities. Affirmative action seems to fail due to the discrimination still going on, it had a lot of success and at the same time has been destroyed by diversity. Saying affirmative action is bad and should be band because some people say that affirmative action is a discrimination to them it's self.

One day, there were two people who went to a company for a job interview for only one job position. The first candidate graduated from a prestigious and highly academic university, had years of work experience in the field, and in the mind of the employer, had the potential to make a positive impact on the company's performance. The second candidate does not have a college degree and is just starting out in the field and seemed to lack the ambition that was visible in his opponent. Who do you think was hired for the position? If this story took place before 1964, the answer would be obvious. However, with the adoption of the social policy known as affirmative action, the answer becomes unclear. Affirmative action is a product of the civil