Affirmitive Action

Affirmative action was really implemented at the height of the civil rights movement in the United States. Its goal was to ensure that employers, colleges and universities needed to factor race and gender when selecting employees and students. "Under affirmative action there would be an active effort to make sure that the workplace and the university included people of all races and both sexes."(Hanmer 8). Prior to this in the United States, opportunity did not exist for all. Many people were denied profe

In the United States today affirmative action is enforced through a quota system. Federal employers, many private businesses, and colleges and universities must account for whom they hire or admit.

These laws also denied blacks equal education. Black children could attend the same schools as white children. Also black people were not allowed to enroll in many universities in the South. The separate facilities were far from equal. "At black schools and colleges, the faculty was poorly paid, the facilities inferior... The curriculum at black colleges was often limited to agricultural and technical programs designed to train southern blacks for low-paying jobs. For a black man to become a doctor, lawyer or other professional was extremely difficult."(Hamner 28-29)

Sowell, Thomas. ""http://www.bomis.com/cgi-bin/ring.cgi?page=10&ring=sowell"," Issues and Views, Spring 1996

So what is the answer? Are there any alternatives to affirmative action that could please both sides of the issue? It’s doubtful. Although I am a young white male who may in some cases be a victim of this "reverse discrimination", I believe affirmative action policies are essential in this country. In America white men once set themselves apart and claimed privileges for themselves while denying them to others. Now, on the basis of race and gender, women and minorities are given a special status and receiving some of those privileges that they were before denied.

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