affirmative action

A detailed Summary of affirmative action

For the past several years the argument over affirmative action has been a highly debated topic. The issue at hand is whether or not affirmative action is reverse discrimination or not. Affirmative action by definition "means taking positive steps to end discrimination, to prevent its recurrence, and to create new opportunities that were previously denied to qualified women and people of color," (Work & Family). The reason that affirmative action is so controversial is because Americans can't decide what they want. "Poll after poll concludes that Americans firmly support "'affirmative action'" to create opportunities for women and people of color, while they vigorously oppose "quotas'" and "'preferences'" for unqualified candidates," (Work & Family). Which is odd considering that the same "affirmative action" that people support does in fact, in some cases, put unqualified personnel in undeserving positions. For those people who believe affirmative action works they generally !

are only focusing on the diversity affirmative action has brought to jobs. Their arguments consist of wanting to see more ethnic and gender diversity in jobs that are usually being worked by white males. To many of these people quality is sometimes put asi

l have to work harder to pick up his or her slack, and fix any mistakes the person might make. Even though the people who disagree with affirmative action have a well substantiated point about people being passed over they sometimes take it a little to far. Many people who disagree with affirmative action believe that people of minority and different gender are hired immediately without being put through a process. This is not true. Almost every minority/women who is hired has to go through the same interviewing process that the non- minority/males have to go through to get hired. In fact the people who were hired were close to the skills of the non-minorities that were not hired they were just given an edge over the non-minority/males in the selection process. However, even though these people were nearly as skilled as the ones not hired it doesn't always mean they can do the job as well as the others. This is not to say that some of the people hired don't fail miserably, but!

ents that are in the minority. Mr. Bakke complained that because he was a white male he was unable to get into this medical school. One problem with his argument was that even if he would have been admitted to the school originally he would only have been the 85th ranked student in this particular class. This seriously affected the way people looked at his case. In the end the Supreme Court ruled that the affirmative action plan of the University was constitutional; however, their use of a quota was not constitutional. Therefore it was that the University had to do away with. While the case was before the courts Bakke was allowed to stay in school, and by the time that the case was done Bakke had in fact completed his schooling, thus eliminating his original complaint (Law and Politics). Even though there is significant support for affirmative action it still has a large, if not larger, group of people who do not support it. These people believe that many under

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Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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