Affirmative action is an attempt by the Unites States to amend a long history of racial discrimination and injustice. According to The American Heritage College Dictionary, the term affirmative action refers to a policy or program that seeks to redress past discrimination by increasing opportunities for underrepresented groups. Since this was such a controversial subject, the program brought out two opposing sides that seemed to have reasonable explanations for both supporting and opposing the issue. The people that support affirmative action, argue

I believe that the problem has been identified; affirmative action is becoming a form of reverse discrimination. It is now time for our government to come up with a potential remedy. In my opinion, society should work towards broad based economic policies like public investment, national health reform, an enlarged income tax credit, child support assurance, and other policies benefiting families with young children. Widely supported programs that promote the interests of both lower and middle class Americans that deliver benefits to minorities and whites on the basis of their economic status, and not their race or ethnicity, will do more to reduce minority poverty than the current, narrowly based, poorly supported policies that single out minority groups. However, if this, or another remedy is not taken sometime in the near future, and affirmative action continues to separate minority groups from whites, we can be sure to see racial tension reach points that our history has never seen.

In order to discuss how affirmative action was put into legislation, we must review the events that helped launch the civil rights movement in this country. Up until 1954, the separate but equal institutions were legally acceptable; however, the Supreme Court decided in the case of Brown v. Board of Education that segregating schooling based upon race was unconstitutional. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested and fined for not moving to the back of a public bus, setting a pattern of boycotts by blacks of bus companies. During the incident in 1957, President Eisenhower had to call federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, after the state’s governor, George Wallace forcibly barred black children from entering white school. The government responded to those incidents by passing new laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Briggs, p.195). The Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibits any form of racial discrimination in employment purposes. This was the start of affirmative action for America. However, in 1961 President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, which stated that the contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin (Berman, p.513). Following the Executive order, the Civil Rights Act was passed, including Title VII that prohibited employment discrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Within one year, another Executive Order was developed and delivered by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. Executive Order 11246 instructed contractors to develop positive action, aimed at undoing the grossest inequities of past discrimination, a schedule for how such actions were to take place, and an honest appraisal of what the plan would be likely to yield. Affirmative action goals, then, were to be accompanied by timetables intended to serve as gauges for assessing progress toward the stated goals (Berman, p.516). The intent in setting hiring goals for affirmative actions was to articulate where the organization was going, and to be able to assess whether it was getting there. President Johnson wanted minorities and women to have better protection above the discrimination laws in place at the time. In his commencement speech at Howard University Johnson made many promises. He promised to begin “the next and more profound stage of civil rights; not just freedom, but opportunity…” Johnson said that the nation would pursue “equality as a result”. He placed the moral duty on the white men of curing “one

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