Affirmative Action
Think of this, a man is ignored and shut out at work because everyone thinks he got his job because of his color. The problem is, he was more qualified than every other person, black or white, that applied for the job, and he is treated like he is not qualified. This whole situation should be avoided. Our affirmative action policies in America need to be changed. The ways that people look at each other is different in the workplace because everyone wonders if they or a co-worker has gotten their job due to affirmative action. Minorities think that affirmative action is used to help past wrongs, but whites see it as a form of reverse discrimination. People say that unqualified minorities get jobs from more qualified whites, and that is causing more qualified people to take lower paying jobs. Since the beginning of the use of affirmative action, America has become a racially tense and a strained place to live in, since whites and minorities fail to agree on the effectiveness of ! Affirmative Action is defined by Webster's New World College Dictionary as " a policy or program for correcting the effects of discrimination in the employment or education of members of certain groups." Affirmative Action was designed
During 1953 President Harry S. Truman's Committee on Government Contract Compliance urged the Bureau of Employment Security "to act positively and affirmatively to implement the policy of nondiscrimination..." (Sykes 223) Other equal protection laws passed to make discrimination illegal were the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Title II and VII of which forbid racial discrimination in public and sex discrimination in employment, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act adopted after Congress found "that racial discrimination in voting was an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of the country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution." (Sykes 224). Most of the "anti" views of affirmative action come from the group that does not benefit from affirmative action, white males. Some white males feel that their jobs are going to unqualified minorities or women that use affirmative action as a way to get employment. These people know that the main argument for affirmative action is that it creates equal opportunity for people in the work force and for students seeking admission into higher education. However, to them this is not a valid point. While affirmative action creates equal opportunity for some individuals, whites say that it discriminates against others, primarily white males. Therefore, affirmative action uses reverse discrimination to solve the problem of discrimination. "Do two wrongs make a right?" Their answer is no. Even though there has been great progress, serious inequalities still exist due to past and present discrimination. For example, white males hold 95 percent of senior managerial positions, and they comprise just 43 percent of the workforce (Rosenfeld 232). Also, women earn just 85 percent of the salaries of men with comparable jobs, education, and experience (Rosenfeld 232). An additional argument that affirmative action should be stopped is the issue of reverse discrimination. Some say that affirmative action uses favoritism to solve the problem of past wrongdoings. Discrimination against whites, particularly males, is just as wrong as unfairness against minorities. As are many problems with affirmative action, reverse discrimination is present in both the workplace and in institutions of higher education. Reverse prejudice in the work place is associated with white males. White male job applicants that claim that they are qualified to receive a job are often, in their view, discarded for under-qualified minorities because of quotas set forth by affirmative action. To whites this act is extremel
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Approximate Word count = 1738
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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