The topic of inequality in the United States is one of heated debate and controversy. The media would like us to believe that America is the land of the free where all people have the same opportunities and life chances, of course though any educated person can clearly see that the America portrayed in the news is simply a fallacy. Civil Rights advocates have attempted for years to create a sense of equality in the United States and one of their more controversial crusades is that of affirmative action. The debate over affirmative action started in 1965 and at this point in America’s history citizens of the U.S. are still pondering over whether or not affirmative action makes things better or only makes things worse. To fully understand affirmative action and why it has become such a troublesome topic one must know the definition and history of affirmative action, the arguments for as well as the arguments against the policy, and of course an analogy on whether or not affirmative action even achieves its intended purpose.

The best place to start is with a brief definition and description of affirmative action. Affirmative action in America is the nations “attempt to redress its long history of racial and sexual discrimination” (Froomkin). The focus of affirmative action policies is to help ensure that ethnic minorities and women have the same chance for scholarships, admission into universities, promotions and several other career and education related opportunities. Institutions which utilize affirmative action policies typically set goals and
timetables in order to ensure a greater amount of cultural and ethnic diversity. The institution will then use recruitment and preference as the means for achieving the specified goals. The main purpose of affirmative action is most often thought to be a way to create a “level playing field for all Americans” (Brunner).

The history of affirmative action begins in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson actually coined the phrase in his Executive Order 11246. The order demanded that federal contractors were to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed or national origin” (Sykes). Later in 1967 President Johnson expanded his previous executive order to also include women under affirmative action beneficiaries. President Lyndon Johnson’s demands were typically met until the late 1970’s when affirmative action began to show signs of policy flaws and came under increasing public scrutiny (Brunner).

The first major accusation of affirmative action arose in 1978 when the case of the University of California v. Bakke brought to light a new form of prejudice which would become known as ‘reverse discrimination’. In this Supreme Court case Bakke, a Caucasian male had applied to medical school in California and had been rejected two consecutive years. Bakke later found that the school had accepted less qualified minority applicants both of the years that he was turned away. University of California had an admission’s policy which reserved 16 out of every 100 openings for minority students in order to ensure diversity on the campus. Although affirmative action was and still today is considered legal that Supreme Court ruled on June 28, 1978 that California’s admission policy was illegal because it indeed did discriminate against Bakke (Brunner).

Affirmative Action continued....

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