In recent times, virtually every great political leader has recognized the truth of affirmative action. But, what is affirmative action one might ask? According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition: "an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women." In the United States, these minority groups include African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Alaskan Natives, and immigrants. In general, affirmative action is intended to benefit groups that are thought to have suffered from discrimination. However, critics argue that some groups benefit from affirmative action because of their political influence. In this essay, I will show that quotas and mandatory preferences not only violate our rights as individual citizens, but also are unnecessary, and why they should be abolished.

The term affirmative action was first used in an order issued by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 that required businesses with U.S. government contracts to treat their employees without regard to race, ethnic origin, religion, or gen

The central idea of compensation behind the affirmative action is no longer justifiable. Many people have realized that even though affirmative action has been successful and beneficiary in the past, but today it has completely lost it purpose to compensate the hurt ones and instead has raised racial tensions. It had many adverse affects on the society over last few decades and people have seen enough of them to finally raise their voice against it. One example of this could be the public poll in which 54 percent of the respondents favored the affirmative action as being good for the country. But when affirmative action was outlined as "mandatory preferences," 75 percent of them resisted it. The reason behind this reaction is that people consider quotas as an infringement of the ideal that people should be judged as individuals, not as members of a group (Rottenberg 435).

Cohen, Carl. "Testimony before a Congressional Committee." Elements of Argument. Annette

T. Rottenberg. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 455-59.

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Approximate Word count = 1537
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)