Quotas! Reverse discrimination! Black preferably! Based on sex! These are, but some of the headlines in our newspapers often seen on affirmative action. Since its introduction in the 1960 s, affirmative action has caused considerable controversy - a controversy that even the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to be determined.
Almost one hundred years after the adoption of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits slavery, the United States was still a dangerous place for African Americans. Jim Crow laws, restrictions, and other policies and practices kept voting lynching blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities and the poor status of second class citizens. The civil rights movement began the process of "elimination of legal discrimination based on race, sex and other characteristics." But many people thought it was more. Thought he had corrective measures to address historical and cultural harm session specific groups of needy people.
Congress of the "Racial Equality
Many of the organizations that form the core of the civil rights movement, including the Congress of the "Racial Equality, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), He the" idea that the aid was necessary to overcome centuries of racial discrimination. ' " In 1961, President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925, which created the Committee on Equal employment opportunity and mandate that projects financed with federal funds must take "affirmative action" to ensure that the employment and hiring practices were free of racial prejudice.
After Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon becomes a president and not only signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but defended the idea of positive action. In a speech June 4, 1965, at Howard University, Johnson was one of the most famous statements on affirmative action. He said:
You do not take a person who, for years, has been hampered by chains and discourse with him, brought him up to the starting line in a race and then say, "You are free to compete with all the others, 'and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.
Civil Rights Act (1964)
That same year, President Johnson a paw Executive Order 11246, requiring contractors of the state to take "positive measures" to minority candidates in all aspects of employment and recruitment. Unlike the previous command Kennedy, Johnson was about much more unambiguous. It describes in detail the measures employers should use to assure equality in hiring and founded the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). Later, the order was amended in 1967 to include gender equality.
Laws are no longer as effective as they are applied. In 1969, the federal government decided to test and refine the action sequences a statement According to Assistant Secretary of Labor Arthur Fletcher, the construction industry has been the worst offenders of the laws of the "equality of opportunity. Philadelphia was chosen as the site for testing the Act President Richard M. Nixon launched the "Order of Philadelphia", setting specific targets and timelines. Nixon makes clear that the order of Philadelphia does not impose quotas, but federal contractors required to show affirmative action to achieve the objectives of the program.
Minorities have made great progress since the 1960 s. The percentage of "African Americans in colleges more than tripled in most schools, a black middle class has grown where once there was only poverty, and African-Americans and women are found in increasing numbers as managers in large companies." Countless Americans adopted the concept of affirmative action as a temporary measure to level the playing field. It was obvious that the discrimination was a major cause of the meeting of African Americans, women and other minorities achieve the American dream. But there was a conservative reaction group. Affirmative action countered the deeply sincere in American meritocracy. Also, critics claimed the economic and social progress by minorities was not necessarily related to success of affirmative action.
Allan Bakke at the University of California at Davis
By the 1970 s, the defects in active policies begin to APPEAR. Reverse discrimination became an issue in which the Supreme Court of the United States, addressed in the 1978 case of Regents of University of California v.. Burke. Allan Bakke, a white male, was rejected two successive years by a medical school that accepted less qualified minority candidates on Bakke. Policy of the "reserved 16/100 seats for candidates of the minority school." The court found that the systems used by rigid quotas affirmative action programs violated the Act, however, in the same judgment, upheld the legality of affirmative action programs.
In the 1980 s, the courts began to question the "underlying assumption that a business or occupation which the United Nations had made up disproportionately in staff was due to past discrimination." Affirmative action programs came to review the "scrutiny" by the courts. This means that if an allegation of past racial discrimination, it must be demonstrated rather than simply assumed. President Bill Clinton said in a memorandum to the White House in 1995 that affirmative action programs should not create quotas, preferences for unqualified persons, or create a situation of reverse discrimination. They must also be abandoned after their goals "equal opportunities have been achieved.
National Organization for the gathering of affirmative action women
Politically, affirmative action has been attacked in various states. In 1997, California passed proposal 209, a ballot initiative that bans all forms of affirmative action at the state level, including public education, employment and contracts. The state of Washington passed a similar law in 1998. Even still, the federal courts to rule constituting the race can count as one of many factors used in the selection of students as long as the formula is not fixed or not award minorities extra points.
Affirmative action has had a tumultuous 45 years since President Kennedy issued his order in 1961. Conservatives, fueled by "angry white men", saw affirmative action as a zero-sum game that opened the door to employment, promotion and education of minorities both close these doors to white "better Person." Some conservatives were very upset by what they see as minorities playing professional victim while at the same time get a free ride in the U.S. system. Many liberals, however, believe that affirmative action can always be beneficial. As historian Roger Wilkins observers are in the 375 year history of the colonization of North America, blacks were slaves for 245 of those years, free but still legally discriminated against for 100 years and only in the last 40 years they lived in another. It takes time for a culture of accepting and integrating new values. The concept of affirmative action is in its infancy and continues to evolve.
Other References
Anderson, Terry H. The pursuit of fairness: a history of positive action. New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2004 Beckwith, Francis J., ed. Palliative measures: Social Justice or Reverse discrimination? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1997, Curry, George E. and Cornel West, eds. The discussion of affirmative action. Boston: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1996.
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