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Affirmative Action

 

            The phrase "affirmative action" was coined by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 when he issued Executive Order 10925, initiating the President's committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11246. This order required federal contractors to take "affirmative action" to increase the number of minorities that they employed. However, when Kennedy and Johnson established affirmative action, they did not intend for it to have the distorted effect that it currently has today. Such distortions include the hiring of unqualified workers, the causing of problems for groups it originally set out to help, and reverse discrimination that results in unfair standards into higher education and the work force. The practice of affirmative action must be stopped. .
             The main argument for affirmative action is that it creates equal opportunity for people in the work force and for students seeking admission into higher education. However, this is not a valid point. While affirmative action creates equal opportunity for some individuals, it discriminates against others, primarily white males. Therefore, affirmative action uses reverse discrimination to solve the problem of discrimination. Affirmative action in theory is intended to help the welfare of this country's minorities by supporting the idea that individuals are equal and should not be judged by race or sex. Therefore, in situations like job and university applications, we should consider minorities to be as less likely a choice for hire as a white male candidate. In short, it tries to give minorities that have been at a disadvantage their whole life, an advantage they have never been open too. All things considered, this does not happen. Instead, quotas are established and the discrimination that was once placed on the minorities now turns the other way. .
             If affirmative action is supposed to support the individual, why is it solely based on race and why doesn't it apply to every situation based on the potential of the individual involved? By singling out the fact that only minorities are the ones that are at a disadvantage you are racially profiling them.


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