Affirmative Action
Under Attack
Under Attack
By Dan Froomkin
Washingtonpost.com Staff
October 1998 Affirmative action is the nation's most ambitious attempt to redress its long history of racial and sexual discrimination. But these days it seems to incite, rather than ease, the nation's internal divisions.
An increasingly assertive opposition movement argues that the battle to guarantee equal rights for all citizens has been fought and won – and that favoring members of one group over another simply goes against the American grain.
But defenders of affirmative action say that the playing field is not level yet – and that granting modest advantages to minorities and women is more than fair, given hundreds of years of discrimination that benefited whites and men.
What Is Affirmative Action?
Born of the civil rights movement three decades ago, affirmative action calls for minorities and women to be given special consideration in employment, education and contracting decisions.
Institutions with affirmative action policies generally set goals and timetables for increased diversity – and use recruitment, set-asides and preference as ways of achieving those goals.
In its modern form, affirmative action can call for an admissions officer faced with two similarly qualified applicants to choose the minority over the white, or for a manager to recruit and hire a qualified woman for a job instead of a man. Affirmative action decisions are generally not supposed to be based on quotas, nor are they supposed to give any preference to unqualified candidates. And they are not supposed to harm anyone through "reverse discrimination."
My Opinion On This Article: After reading this article, you may think affirmative is making things worse. In my opinion, I am nuetral about it. I believe that affirmative action can be seen both ways; good and bad. Affirmative action is giving minorities the rights they deserve, yet it takes some opportunities from whites. For example when a white person and a black person applies for a job, (both with the same education and skill level) the black person is more likely to be hired. This is because the place that these two are applying at needs a certain percentage of non-whites to work there. I agree to this because this is a way to show that blacks and other minorities are able to make something of themselves. The thing that I don't agree about is that even though whites have more opportunities, it's wrong to take away something without a valid reason. I believe that affirmative action should be applied equally to minorities and white. For example, when a black and white person apply somewhere, they should both be accepted, if they qualify.
Washingtonpost.com Staff
October 1998 Affirmative action is the nation's most ambitious attempt to redress its long history of racial and sexual discrimination. But these days it seems to incite, rather than ease, the nation's internal divisions.
An increasingly assertive opposition movement argues that the battle to guarantee equal rights for all citizens has been fought and won – and that favoring members of one group over another simply goes against the American grain.
But defenders of affirmative action say that the playing field is not level yet – and that granting modest advantages to minorities and women is more than fair, given hundreds of years of discrimination that benefited whites and men.
What Is Affirmative Action?
Institutions with affirmative action policies generally set goals and timetables for increased diversity – and use recruitment, set-asides and preference as ways of achieving those goals.
In its modern form, affirmative action can call for an admissions officer faced with two similarly qualified applicants to choose the minority over the white, or for a manager to recruit and hire a qualified woman for a job instead of a man. Affirmative action decisions are generally not supposed to be based on quotas, nor are they supposed to give any preference to unqualified candidates. And they are not supposed to harm anyone through "reverse discrimination."
My Opinion On This Article: After reading this article, you may think affirmative is making things worse. In my opinion, I am nuetral about it. I believe that affirmative action can be seen both ways; good and bad. Affirmative action is giving minorities the rights they deserve, yet it takes some opportunities from whites. For example when a white person and a black person applies for a job, (both with the same education and skill level) the black person is more likely to be hired. This is because the place that these two are applying at needs a certain percentage of non-whites to work there. I agree to this because this is a way to show that blacks and other minorities are able to make something of themselves. The thing that I don't agree about is that even though whites have more opportunities, it's wrong to take away something without a valid reason. I believe that affirmative action should be applied equally to minorities and white. For example, when a black and white person apply somewhere, they should both be accepted, if they qualify.
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