Affirmative action (AA) is a policy to provide equal opportunity in employment and education for minority sections of society. Affirmative action stems from the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which forbids states from creating laws that only infringe upon the rights of particular groups of US citizens. However, in the landmark case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not prohibit segregation as long as the segregated population received equal services. This ruling paved the way for state-sanctioned positive discrimination in the form of affirmative action.
In 1948, President Truman signed an Executive Order prohibiting the armed forces from practicing segregationist policies. A few years later, he directed the Bureau of Employment Security to act on ending segregation. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was a form of discrimination in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education, in which an African-American schoolgirl sought the right to attend an all-whites public school. In 1964, the federal government passed the Civil Rights Act. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson issued an Executive Order that made it mandatory for federal contractors to practice affirmative action.
Affirmative action is a contentious issue. These policies focus on improving access education and employment. In education, affirmative action relates to schools and colleges providing equal opportunities to minority groups. However, there is considerable controversy surrounding the effectiveness and ethics of affirmative action programs. Many consider it a program to rectify the effects of racism and discrimination practiced in the past and in the present. However, others consider it a bias or a form of reverse discrimination, in which a group that was formerly disadvantaged now has an advantage over the previously advantaged group. These people argue that affirmative action is a form of prejudice.
Those who support AA state that because of affirmative action policies, educational institutes are now reaching out to minority groups that historically went unrepresented in these institutions. The institutions provide them with financial aid programs to assist those who cannot afford tuition. They believe that this process generates diversity in their educational institutions, which is an educational advantage for all students because it introduces them to a global, multicultural society. A multicultural environment fosters personal and educational development, which better prepares students to achieve success in a multicultural work environment. Affirmative action programs thus help minority groups gain access to higher education. Statistical data confirms this positive effect. Students who graduated from colleges and universities through affirmative action programs have obtained better jobs and higher wages than those who were unable to attend college, and they improved their lives because of the opportunities they received.
Some supporters of the program believe that affirmative action policies are necessary to compensate minority groups who experienced a disadvantage due to centuries of racial and social discrimination. They refute claims that discrimination does not exist in the twenty-first century. Research conducted by the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted an experiment to test this theory. They found that of approximately 5,000 fake resumes sent out, only 6.7 percent of resumes featuring black-sounding names received calls as compared to 10 percent of resumes with white-sounding names, despite comparable skill and educational levels of the candidates. This survey proved that discrimination still exists, and thus affirmative action programs are necessary to provide equal opportunity to minority groups in our society.
Many people have criticized the affirmative action program. Some believe that the program is outdated and now results in reverse discrimination, where one group takes precedence over another based on racial background rather than academic achievement. Others object to minority groups facing different standards. The fact that affirmative action policies lower standards by lowering the test scores and grade point averages for minority groups may result in these students receiving poor treatment from professors and their peers, who may believe that minority students have not earned admission to these institutes. They think that lowering standards for these minority groups will also have the effect of making these students less competitive and striving only to meet the lower standards. Some opponents believe that affirmative action programs are condescending to minority groups since the existence of the program implies that these students cannot succeed without support. Others believe that affirmative action may be unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
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