Affirmative action is any plan or program that promotes the employment of women and members of any minority group (Britannica 172). This term, first used by President John F. Kennedy, is an action taken to remedy the effects and specifically end job and college entrance discrimination (Neiss 244). In nineteen sixty-four, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty-four which made job discrimination illegal and really began to push Kennedy’s affirmative action. When President Richard M. Nixon took office, he became the first to implement federal policies designed to guarantee minority hiring.

Over the years, there have been two significant court cases involving affirmative action. The first case occurred during the nineteen-seventies. A young man named Allan Bakke; who applied twice to the University of California medical school, was rejected in result of affirmative action policies both years. Bakke took his case to the

Affirmative action hurts dignity. When universities use race-based admission systems, they minimize the achievements of Hispanics and blacks who do not need special treatment to be admitted to college. Weighing skin color over standardized test scores does not make sense. When any student is admitted to a college with less-than-average marks, they are less likely to succeed in competency with other students.

Why is the only relevant discrimination to consider the discrimination that occurred in the United States? Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Asians, American Indians, and Americans of Irish, Italian, Polish, and German origin have all been subjected to discrimination at one time or another in the United States. Why does affirmative action only apply to a couple of these groups?

America is supposed to be the land of “equal opportunity.” Why create unnecessary resentment when we can learn to live together in harmony and respect? Affirmative action recreates the very problem it is suppose to solve: discrimination. Affirmative action should be outlawed. Although affirmative action was a brilliant idea thirty years ago and a positive intervention at the time, it is no longer necessary today.

The second significant court case involving affirmative action occurred more recently. In nineteen ninety-six, a forty-three year old mother named Barbara Grutter applied to the University of Michigan law school. Grutter was not admitted into the school based on its racial preferences. The following year in nineteen ninety-seven, two other white students with good grades and high SAT scores were also denied admission at the University of Michigan. All three students took their case against the

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