In 1961, President John F. Kennedy introduced the “affirmative action” with his Executive Order. According to Kennedy, affirmative action is a policy “to ensure that applicants are treated equally without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” (as cited MacLaury, 2010, 42). This was the starting point that debates have started and lead the affirmative action to spread over the world. But what is the affirmative action which he talked about? Affirmative action aims to design policies that give special consideration to disadvantaged groups and enhance diversity, especially in employment, education and contracting (as cited Potucek, 2003, para.4). Such policies make all people equal by giving some privileges to disadvantaged people. To generalize, affirmative action protects people from stigmatization or exclusion from opportunities in social life such as in workplaces and schools because of their ethnicity, race or gender (Soni, 1999, p. 577).
In this essay, affirmative action will be handled for three groups: Employees, students, and minorities. Firstly, for each of them, affirmative action’s benefits and downfalls will be given and discussed whether or not affirmative action’s downfalls overweigh benefits. In my opinion, there is no need for affirmative action policy; it is not the real solution. Because every case must consider in particular, generalization cannot apply to specific circumstances including discrimination.
First of all, affirmative action policy includes the employment conditions, especially in favor of disadvantage employees. With affirmative action, breaking stereotypes and creating diversity in workplaces are expected. However, affirmative action may create stigma towards people who benefit from affirmative action policies. Other people may think that these people’s position is given to her/him because of affirmative action. Actually, in the Civil Right Act, there is already a section to prevent discrimination towards the particular groups for employment. Section 703 of Title 7 assert that “Nothing in this title should be interpreted to require an employer, employment agency, or union to grant preferential treatment to any individual or group” (as cited Schaefer & Berthelsen, 1997, p.216). In this law, any kind of discrimination for hiring is prohibited. Therefore, if there is a law that prevents preferential hiring and if this law applies properly, affirmative action for employees, which might result in breaking extra stereotypes in a workplace, is not needed anymore,
Secondly, affirmative action policy has an impact on schools and students. Affirmative action gives a chance to less successful students who have lack opportunities to improve their lessons. By that way, affirmative action makes their entrance to university easy by giving them extra quota in university. However, this chance can affect students in two negative ways. Firstly, their efforts may stay in the shadow of affirmative action. Their efforts can be seen as useless, so this makes them reluctant to study hard. Secondly, there is no guarantee for enough application to extra quota from students who can benefit from affirmative action. On the other hand, maybe a white student expends more efforts to enter the university; nonetheless, he would not enter. Thus affirmative action is not the real solution, after the application of the affirmative action, a new problem will emerge. Therefore another solution must be thought. For instance, a school system can be developed. Some high-income people can go to the colleges which have a qualified education or can take extra private tuition. On the other side, disadvantaged students have to go to government schools which have poor qualified education. So actual problem is in school system, this should be solved.
Lastly, an opponent of affirmative action suggests that special preferences should be given to minorities to compensate for years of discrimination. Conversely, other parts of society who is not included in affirmative action policy, may constitute opposite reaction and create reverse discrimination, Tummala calls that “constitutional paradox” which aims to treat all people equally, but this equality is created by affirmative action which is another inequality (as cited Potucek, 2003, para.8). Due to the fact that affirmative action is advantages for advantaged and this is also one kind of discrimination. In fact, racism is a hate crime and illegal. To provide some special privileges to disadvantaged minorities is not a solution, just another type of discrimination. To solve this problem and break the stereotype which is constituted due to racism, hate crime must be solved.
To conclude, affirmative action was born late 20th century with President Kennedy. Later, affirmative action policies have been started to discuss, nowadays it is one of the hottest topics of agenda. Opponents of affirmative action defend that an action is required to make
References
MacLaury, J. (2010). President Kennedy’s E. O. 10925: Seedbed of Affirmative Action. Federal History, 42-57.
Schaefer, T. E., Berthelsen W. L. (1997) One More Time- Is Affirmative Action Moral. Catholic Social Science Review, 215-223.
Soni,V. (1999). Morality vs. Mandate: Affirmative Action in Employment. Public Personnel
Management 28 (4), 577-594.
Potucek, R. (2003). Affirmative Action: Pros and Cons. http://www.k-
state.edu/media/webzine/0203/aapros&cons.html
(24.05.2013)
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