Affirnative Action

Affirmative action, “an effort to improve the educational and employment opportunities for minorities,” has done very little to alleviate the pressures minorities face in today’s society (Williams, 1997, 169). Affirmative action’s intention to create an equal entrance to jobs and education has caused a controversy on whether the system is helping or hurting society. There has been very little success in helping society from the program. Although blacks and other minorities have suffered many injustices and discrimination in the past, affirmative action is now granting them special privileges to obtain positions in educational facilities based solely on the color of their skin, not their merit. Affirmative action has also done very little to close the wage gap between minorities and whites (Williams, 1997, 175).

The historical ground-works for a plan of affirmative action were found within the Fourteenth and Fifteen Amendment of the Constitution, the various Civil Rights Acts in the sixties, and the Voting Act of 1965. In 1960, affirmative action became a part of a larger design during President Johnson’s “War on Poverty” (Jenkins, 1999, 177). In reacti

“When a government creates a special advantage for one ethnic group, it comes at the expense of others (Williams, 1997, 172).” An example of this can be described by looking at the admittance records of the University of California at Berkeley. At Berkeley, blacks with an average score on the SATs of nine hundred and fifty-two were accepted into the college over whites that scored an average of twelve hundred and thirty-two and Asians with an average score of twelve hundred and fifty-four. As a result of this, two thousand white and Asian straight A students were turned away from the college to provide room for blacks and Hispanics (Williams, 1997, 171). In order to meet with the affirmative action guidelines, some universities will choose to accept a less qualified student over one who shows greater merit in their grades and work. Approximately seventy percent of the minority students accepted to prestigious universities fail to graduate (Williams, 1997, 174). “Admission requirements to schools gives preferential treatment and insults anyone who is beneficiary of this practice” (Jenkins, 1999, 178). Affirmative action in educational facilities promotes a feeling a reverse discrimination in which whites and Asians with higher SAT scores and grades are denied an education at a prestigious school to fulfill a quota of minorities (Williams, 1997, 173). Affirmative action is not only disappointing in creating equality in schools, it also has not helped in closing the wage gap among men and women or between minorities and white men.

Not only do minorities have a harder time getting a job and being paid fairly, they have an even more difficult time trying to get a house. College educated blacks and Hispanics are less likely to own homes than whites with only a high school diploma. Blacks are also often denied mortgages sixty percent more than whites. Blacks and Hispanics are also denied housing credit at twice the rate of whites (Barakat, 2000, 1). Affirmative action has done very little to help minorities survive in today’s society.

Affirmative action, a plan designed to help narrow the gaps between minorities and

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