Affirmative Action
Affirmative action is a term used to describe federal initiatives that require people responsible for providing economic and educational opportunities to consider a candidate’s race, sex, or disability, especially if the individual’s minority affiliation has suffered past discrimination. Affirmative action was implemented with the idea and hope that America would finally become truly equal. The tensions of the 1960’s civil rights movement had made it very clear, that the nation’s minority and female population were not receiving equal opportunities. Affirmative action has been the subject of increasing debate and tension in American society. Affirmation action also has the nation’s most ambitious attempt to redress the issues of racial and sexual discrimination. The history of affirmative action has its roots in the Civil Right Act of 1964. In Title VII of the Civil Rights Act it provides the initial legal basis for affirmative action for women in the workplace. In our society, there has always been affirmative action in higher education, but for many years it operated to exclude, rather than include, women and people of color (Gandy 2003). Since the Civil Rights Movement began, there have been policies and pr
ocedures put in place to help ensure females and people of minority backgrounds can obtain an education, receive public contracts, and have access to a variety of services that some in our society take for granted. Affirmative action first began with John F. Kennedy in 1961. President John F. Kennedy issued an executive order 10925 which used affirmative action for the first time. It instructed federal contractors to take “affirmative action to ensure that applicants are treated equally without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” (Americans for a Fair Chance 2003). This created the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. This was eventually signed into law in 1964 and called the Civil Rights Act. This was landmark legislation prohibiting employers with more than 15 employees, regardless if they had government contracts, to discriminate. This established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Fortunately, President Lyndon Johnson amended the Executive Order 11246 which required including affirmative action for women. More recently in 2000, the Florida Legislature passed the “One Florida” Plan, banning affirmative action. The program also included the Talented 20% Plan that guarantees the top 20% admission to the University of Florida system (Americans for a Fair Chance 2003). Most recently in 2003, the Supreme Court handed down its decisions in Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.
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Approximate Word count = 967
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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