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The roots of affirmative action can be traced back to the passage
of the 1964 Civil Rights Act where legislation redefined public and
private behavior. The act states that to discriminate in private is
legal, but anything regarding business or public discrimination is
illegal ("Affirmative" 13). There are two instances when opposing
affirmative action might seem the wrong thing to do. Even these two
cases don't justify the use of affirmative action. First is the
nobility of the cause to help others. Second, affirmative action was a
great starter for equality in the work place. The most promanite
variable in deciding affirmative action as right or wrong, is whether
or not society is going to treat people as groups or individuals.
Affirmative action is a question of morals. The simplicity to form two
morals that are both correct but conflicting is the reason for the
division of our nation on affirmative action.
Affirmative action is very noble when looking at who benefits from
the outcome. Take a closer look at affirmative action. The people that
are involved and the damage it takes on our society surfaces many
doubts. Taking a closer look also stirs up a question of nobility that
needs to be answered before making a decision on affirmative action.
Does affirmative action simply change who is discriminated against and
makes it legal for the new discriminators?
Coming from my point of view, the view of a white male, this is a
serious question. One example of this came to my attention from Dave
Shiflett who once worked at Rocky Mountain News wrote "Rocky Mountain
Hire". In this article he tells about a new hiring strategy used at the
Denver news paper Rocky Mountain News. A memo was sent out stating,
"The job reviews of supervisors and others involved in hiring should
address race and sex. Each review should have a hiring goal of at least
half of our hires being women and at least half non-white" (Shiflett
45). Lets put this strategy to work. We have ten positions to fill,
these positions can be filled following the above guidelines by hiring
five black women. It can also be met by hiring five white women and
five non-white men. Obviously to meet this goal successfully would mean
to not hire a white male (Shiflett 45). I strongly disagree with my
white fore fathers and society today who both address race and sex when
hiring. Using a persons skin color in hiring is discrimination no
matter how society looks at it.
At St. Bonaventure University the potential for reverse
discrimination became a reality. In May 1994, 22 faculty members were
fired, all were male. The president of the university was very blunt
about his motive, to protect the small number of women on the
university staff (Magner 18). This was purely a discussion based on
gender not qualification. No matter how efficient these men were some
were fired for not being part of a certain minority. Gary A. Abraham,
who was fired as a tenured associate professor stated, "It seems
ludicrous that the university can rectify its failure to engage in
affirmative action on the backs of its male faculty." Twelve of the men
took their complaints to the US Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission. The commission sided with the men and are even planning to
bring the university up on charges themselves (Magner 18). Giving an
employer the power to discriminate only towards minorities is unfair
and unethical.
Now the question is who will the government protect? Society can
not consider its self fair when we are still forming decisions based
upon gender or race. It is not noble to protect the jobs of women at
Bonaventure University simply there are not enough women on the roster.
We should protect the jobs of the experienced. We can not form a new
society from affirmative action and believe the rights of all United
States citizens will be upheld.
The whole idea behind affirmative action is to right the wrongs of
the past. Well, what about the individuals that were not even born when
this atrocity of discrimination was going on. Society should not punish
the youth for the crimes of their white male forefathers. Thomas Sowell
gave an interesting story in his article "Free Markets vs.
Discrimination" about Albert Greuner. He had graduated from Pensacola
Naval photography school and was refused a job he was more than
qualified for. The reason Albert was denied the position was based on
the conduct of the other cadets graduating from Pensacola(Sowell 69).
These are the battles that need to be fought. Stop employers from
hiring in a discriminatory fashion Not to just favor the group that has
been discriminated against in the past.
Not only does it affect white males, but the recipients of
affirmative action suffer from negative side effects also. There is an
angry backlash that women and minorities feel from affirmative action.
There is also the effect of pampering. It can make any individual lazy
and unmotivated. Affirmative action does nothing but build walls to
separate us more, and pollute our work atmosphere with tension.
An angry backlash towards the recipients of affirmative action
appears prominently in the work place. An example of affirmative action
backlash comes from the article "When an Advantage is Not an
Advantage." "I recently got a large chunk of government funding in a
program that didn't even have any sort of affirmative action ranking.
Yet, almost all men I talk to including my father, assume there was at
least some component of consideration given to me for being female"
(Cohen 18). Affirmative action weakens the spirit of the individual by
making them think the reason they got the job or grant was because
someone felt sorry for them. Some women believe affirmative action will
benefit them in the beginning because there is an incentive to hire
women. This will do more to hinder than to help in the long run. Here
is a quote from an article opposing affirmative action. "I think
affirmative action helps to get a female an interview but once on the
interview and once on the job, it gives males a basis for their
resentment and skepticism of females..." (Cohen 18). This can cause
additional tension between men and women that was not there before
affirmative action.
Another side effect is how pampering can make a person lazy and
unmotivated to excel. This is exactly what affirmative action does. It
makes sure that women and minorities are pampered to make up for lost
time. Well, lets take a look at what all the pampering in the past has
done for the white male. Look at the college graduation numbers of
today. Eighty percent of blacks attending college graduate, while only
55% of white college students graduate. These numbers alone show what
discrimination did to help the white male to achieve a lazy attitude of
"I don't need good grades, I am white I'll get a god job." This is a
dangerous attitude in 1996, because in some situations a white male
needs to be over qualified to compensate for small "bonus points" some
minorities receive. By pampering any single group the long-term
disaster will outweigh the short term relief.
Discrimination is not the problem that plagues society. This is
shown with the increase of women in the work force. The number of women
in the computer industry has increased 93%, in auto industry 89%, and
in pharmaceuticals 78% (Dunkle 44). Thirty years ago this was not the
case, and affirmative action forced American employers to open their
eyes to the benefits of diversity. "Affirmative action in 1995 is
beginning to resemble Soviet Communism in 1969. Outside the sheltered
elites, the majority of people loathe it. The circumstances in which it
was dreamed up no longer exist" (Sullivan E15). Now it is time to end
affirmative action and focus on what is holding down minorities today.
Let us turn our sites on poverty, poor family life, poor schooling, for
these problems are colorblind, and can hinder an individuals chances
for success more than anything else. To equal the opportunity of
minorities for employment we should educate and prepare them, not force
them into the work force or universities.
Guadalupe Quintanilla, the assistant Vice President for Academic
Affairs for the University of Houston, stated, "Affirmative action has
been distorted and abused. We need to take a second look at it. I think
affirmative action has opened a lot of doors, but it has been
misrepresented. I'm for opportunity, not special treatment. The
majority of people in this country are open-minded and willing to work
with people without considering their sex or color. So I think we could
do away with set asides" (Dunkel 42).
Problems with equality in our work force and universities can not
be blamed completely on discrimination. The problem today is colorblind
poverty. Affirmative action actually hurts the lower income individual
of any minority group. Thomas Sowell, in his 1990 book, Preferential
Policies, used an international survey of affirmative action programs
to show the consequences. "The benefits of affirmative action went
overwhelmingly to people who were already better off., while the poorer
members of the same groups either did not gain ground or actually fell
further behind" (Richardson 4C). The wealthier neighborhoods have
better school systems, which in turn offer greater resources. If we
bring equality to our school systems, a rise in minorities in the work
force will soon follow.
Some universities here in the United States have based enrollment
on College Board's and SAT's or ACT's, none of which show intelligence
levels. These tests rather show the standards of education that the
individual has encountered. The gap between mean SAT scores for black
and whites is 938 for whites and 740 for blacks(Shipler 16) These test
scores sometimes become the discrimination against minorities. Another
form of evaluating students is where the Universities and government
need to focus, to establish a standard in education that spans across
all levels of income. Affirmative action is definitely not the answer
for equality in this day in time.
Affirmative action has balanced for thirty years on a moral threat.
It is now time to apply new moral threats, not towards the employers
and colleges but towards the government. For it is the government that
needs to change its polices. The government needs to take action
towards the real problems of equality: poverty, not the bad white man
from the past. Affirmative action is simply the same old discrimination
in reverse.
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