Affirmative action is fair because it recognizes and represents minorities as being at a socio-economic disadvantage, and forces this aspect of minorities to be considered above the majority in the workplace.
A 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found in the case of Fisher v. University that it wouldn’t exclude racial preference from being a factor in college admissions.
It did rule to raise the college’s standards of their use, though. The court supported in its ruling that if the aim of colleges and universities is to diversify the student body, then the schools should readily embrace the race-neutral vessels necessary to do so.
President Kennedy first used the term in 1961 to encourage non-discrimination during the hiring processes of government employees. Though maybe implicit because of its introduction after a civil war and during a time of controversial racial reconstruction in the country, the fundamental purpose of affirmative action was not centered around issues regarding gender, nationality, or religion.
But soon after a war on civil inequalities declared segregation illegal in the United States, “affirmative action” became a principle with a purpose focusing simply on fairness.
When you take the black minority, which had just established their equality after having spent centuries being slaves to the white majority, and suddenly place them into the same fields of work as white workers in the competitive workplace, it would seem unfair to not address the issues that would come of measuring blacks by the same standards as whites.
Furthermore, it would be highly unfair, after declaring segregation illegal in the states, to not allow a black person the equal opportunities and similar advantages to obtain the status of a white man with similar qualities.
In a speech given by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 – three years after President Kennedy laid the groundwork for affirmative action – Johnson said, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race, and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”
Critics believe that offering preferential treatment to those people affected by a historical disadvantage is not fair, that affirmative action fails to increase the representation of minorities and women.
But statistics prove the opposite; notable success and progress has been seen in racial equality and the inclusion of women in the work force as a result of affirmative action.
A report from the U.S. Labor Department concluded that just 50 years after its implementation, affirmative action had helped in the promotion of more than 5 million minorities and 6 million white and minority women in the workplace.
Taking affirmative action has only proven to be of significance in addressing these issues of inequality because it shows us the necessity of acknowledging how far we remain from securing equality for all.
The U.S. Bureau of the Census reports that in 2010, women averaged earning 77 cents for every dollar made by male employees with similar qualities and job duties.
The report also concluded that black people continued to have twice the unemployment than white people.
Opponents argue that affirmative action could be considered a type of positive discrimination; that giving an advantage to minorities who were once enslaved or persecuted people in history could, in fact, be seen as a form of prejudice in itself.
However, as a nation with the skidmarks of a crappy history, whose reputation reeks of profits made off of racism and racist propaganda, it is first our responsibility to progress as a society which offers equal opportunity for all citizens.
Likewise, any and every measure taken to acknowledge and correct disadvantages brought on by discrimination – no matter how futile it may appear to be in retrospect – should be a standard prioritized for its essential attempt at maintaining equality and fairness of all people.
