Affirmative action is a comprised plan created by local and state governments to "fight fire with fire." It is supposed to stop discrimination against the blacks, but at the same time is just another step back towards discrimination against the white majority. In other words, it is a plan to help minorities in getting the same privileges as the majority, mainly focused on blacks and whites. "Reverse discrimination" through affirmative action is unfair to the majority in public school admissions when it is supposed to help society.

Since the 1960's, a program called affirmative action was enacted in a few public high schools and universities throughout the states, mainly in California and Texas. It has caused a major controversy, in the fact that it uses a racial preference among admissions to these schools. When high test scores, personal merit, and leadership that a white person (majority) can accomplish are put aside to allow a minority enter the same competition (admission) just to meet a racial quota, "reverse discrimination" comes into play. It is unfair to overlook these exceptional achievements, because of a wr

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Statistically speaking, the affirmative action program has not really helped African American and Hispanic minorities. At Berkeley, when the program was enacted, "Only 58 percent of African American students from the freshman classes...managed to complete their degree requirement within six years" (N.C.P.A. 1). After the program was discarded, the article concluded that "the total number of blacks graduating would still be about the same as under preferences [affirmative action]," which would make the program pointless.

National Center for Policy Analysis: Idea House. Dallas, TX. 1998. 5 Oct. 2000

Another example of this was when an elite Lowell High School based in San Francisco tried a different answer to the admissions process of giving minorities advantages by setting up an economic background bias in helping dispute the policy instead. The policy came under fire back in 1994 when Chinese-Americans threatened to sue since the school only allowed 40% of any ethnic group, in which the Chinese-American majority easily accounted for, had to score higher on their tests. The new, voluntary policy was enacted to help end this "reverse discrimination", but also had some major flaws when the school could not keep up with the "racial diversity" they wanted to accomplish. The new plan "resulted in fewer invitations to African-American and Latino students" (Mareth 58). Lowell High School, as of today, has yet to come up with a satisfactory plan to meet their goals, but as long as the government is involved in this issue, they will not accomplish much.

Cornel West, professor of Afro-American studies and Philosophy of Religion, explains how affirmative action should be "[viewed] as neither a major solution to poverty nor a sufficient means to equality" (95). He favors the positive effects of affirmative action, but admits it will not be a solution to minorities. Affirmative action, as he explains, is a "redistributive [measure] that enhances the standard of livi

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