FREE ESSAY ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION 
INTRODUCTION
Affirmative action is the name of an American social practice through which members of
historically disadvantaged racial and/or ethnic groups are given preferential treatment
in an effort to compensate for past harm caused to their ancestors. For thirty years,
affirmative action was carefully shielded from open, honest evaluation while it
simultaneously grew more pervasive along with the federal bureaucracy and welfare state.
The recent political upheaval caused by the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 has
opened the door for opponents of affirmative action programs to successfully pursue their
gradual elimination. If affirmative action is to continue as an American institution, its
supporters must be willing to listen to frank criticisms of affirmative action's
shortcomings. Nevertheless, affirmative action programs remain an endangered species.
II. HISTORICAL CONCEPT 
Affirmative action programs were initiated by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 to
correct past discrimination. Its purpose was to actively seek out black candidates for
jobs, college, or promotions, without treating them differently in the decision to hire,
admit, or promote. In the 1970s, however, affirmative action took on a new meaning as
good-faith efforts to recruit blacks would not withstand a Title VII challenge of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. Employers and admission committees had to actually hire or
admit black applicants to withstand challenges of racial discrimination (Rodrigue, 1995).
The strategy most frequently employed was to select the best available black candidate
even if the best was not good enough for the position.
The rationale most frequently given for affirmative-action programs is "the principal of
compensatory justice" This principle states that whenever an injustice has been
committed, just compensation or reparation must be made to the injured party. It is this
principle that is the rationale behind the tort law's compensating victims for infers for
individual harms. This principle also explains why German paid Jews for the harms caused
in World War II and why American Indians should be compensated for the past unjust
deprivation of their trivial land.
Indeed, affirmative action means taking measures that go beyond merely ceasing or
avoiding discrimination; it means taking measures that attempt to undo or compensate for
the effects of past discrimination. The principle is encountered in several major
categories of discrimination areas-most notably employment and education, but also such
areas as housing and government contracting. In this way we can say that affirmative
action programs help support the principle of equality of citizens that is a defining
feature of democracy.
III. THE ROLE OF HR IN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PROGRAMS
Equal Employment Opportunity means that an HR manager will;
? provide equal access to all available jobs, training, and promotional opportunities 
? provide similar benefits and services to everyone 
? apply all policies and practices consistently to applicants and staff 
? do not differentiate among applicants or employees on the basis of race, color,
national origin, religion, sex, physical or mental disability, or sexual orientation 
In other words, EEO forbids employment discrimination. It requires the elimination of any
bias in personnel activities. 
However, if we take a look at the nature of affirmative action policies, they do not
promote democracy. Indeed, in n employment, for example, two basic categories of
affirmative action can be identified: (1) coercive and (2) voluntary. Coercive plans, in
turn, fall into two groups: plans imposed as a condition of government contracts or
grants; and court-imposed remedies under Title VII of the Civil Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C.A
2000e et sequ.). Voluntary plans are those adopted by an employer, university, or the
like, when under no direct legal compulsion to do so. The earliest affirmative action
plans were concerned with race, but plans now frequently extend to sex, national origin,
and religion (Rodrigue, 1995).
Over the past thirty years, affirmative action programs initiated by the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 have grown into ". . . a web of racial and gender preferences touch[ing] all
federal departments, according to a recent congressional report." When Senator Robert
Dole asked for a list of race-related federal policies, "He got back a 32-page report
listing roughly 160 laws, regulations or executive orders." (Rodrigue, 1995). This issue
has been viewed as not being a true champion of democracy, as Democrats use it against
Republicans. It does take race and gender into consideration but becomes reverse
discrimination for those who are qualified but cannot be accepted because quotas have to
be filled. Therefore, they too are discriminated and equal employment or admission are
moral rights which undermine the basic principles of democracy. 
Although the issue has been exploited for partisan gain, the Democrats are not blameless
for some of the current attacks on affirmative action. Because affirmative action was
zealously shielded by the Democratic leaders of Congress from criticism for thirty years,
some of its very real problems and flaws have festered and gone uncorrected. Some
affirmative action programs clearly are perceived by the majority of Americans as having
gone too far. Excessively activist affirmative action laws jeopardize the very existence
of affirmative action. Affirmative action should not put pressure on employers or schools
to have a quota of minorities because this goes against the principle of freedom and
equality that should prevail in this democratic country. Every citizen should compete
based on its competence and on its ability to prove that he or she is a valuable member
of this society (Horner, 1995). 
The legitimacy of affirmative action is harmed in other ways as well. Colleges and
universities have come under increasing pressure to increase the number of minority
students whom they accept. In some cases, academic institutions have lowered their
standards for minority applicants to ensure that "enough" minority students enroll. This
practice has an unfortunate side effect. The widespread application of lower standards
for academic admissions, for example has drawn ill-prepared students in over their heads
and created, by this artificially contrived mismatch of student and school, the
impression of black intellectual inferiority, a reactivation of the racial stereotype
most dangerous to black advancement (Rodrigue, 1995). Colleges have increased recruitment
of black freshmen, but only one-third of them ultimately graduate (Rodrigue, 1995).
Affirmative action programs at the Federal and local levels have sometimes brought out
negative actions. When Allan Bakke sued the Regents of the University of California
because he was denied admission to the University's medical school due to its affirmative
action program, the case prompted serious discussion of the possibility of "reverse
discrimination" resulting from the type of plan the university employed. A year after the
Supreme Court decided the Bakke case in his favor, the Court rejected a suit brought by
Brian Weber against the Kaiser Aluminum Company and the United Steelworkers of America
that claimed he had also suffered reverse discrimination in a company job-training
program in which blacks were given preference (Crpcl. 1995).
A similar effect is therefore seen in the workplace. If a company is forced to
excessively lower its standards for the sake of hiring more minority applicants, many of
them will not be prepared to effectively compete against their more-qualified peers.
Similar policies have led municipal police and fire departments to hire, in the 1980s,
underqualified recruits who were not able to achieve promotion in the 1990s, thereby
creating for blacks the appearance of racist promotion policies and for whites the
appearance of black incapacity (Rodrigue, 1995). Zealousness is an effective way to get
attention, but it is not effective in the long run. In the long term, the silent majority
may be more alienated than convinced (Rodrigue, 1995).
Affirmative action programs are in danger for ideological reasons as well. Beginning in
the eighties with the election of President Reagan, Americans have increasingly come to
reject "Big Government." Constance Horner reports that "Almost 70 percent responding to
one national poll indicated a belief that 'the federal government controls too much of
our daily lives,'" (Rodrigue, 1995) and "Another poll had two-thirds of Americans
choosing 'big government' as the country's gravest peril" (Rodrigue, 1995). For the past
thirty years, affirmative action programs have been initiated, enforced, and enlarged by
an ever-expanding government bureaucracy. Today, Americans are increasingly critical of
the pervasive presence of government regulation and intrusion into nearly every aspect of
their lives. 
America's current incarnation of affirmative action was formally established by an
executive order during the sixties. Affirmative action was established with noble motives
and the support of most Americans, but extensive changes have taken place in both
American society and affirmative action programs themselves since the 1960s, and the
legitimacy and desirability of affirmative action has come under steadily-increasing
scrutiny and criticism. Today's democracy must give everyone the same opportunity and
chances, and let people work harder to get where they want to be. 
If affirmative action as an institution is to survive into the next century, its
supporters must re-establish its legitimacy in the minds of the American people. At its
foundation, American culture has a sense of fairness, a belief in racial integration, and
a presumption that a civically activist polity will voluntarily (if slowly) make positive
social change. True democracy must ensure that affirmative action programs are eliminated
because racial quotas don't promote democracy but only encourage favoritism.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Crock, Stan. "'A Thunderous Impact' on Equal Opportunity." Business Week June 26, 1995:
37.
Davis, Cinda-Sue. The Equity Education. Fostering the Advancement of Women in
the Sciences. Mathematics, and Engineering. 1996. New York: Jossey-Bass Inc. 
Cross, Theodore. What If There Was No Affirmative Action in College Admissions? A
Further
Refinement of Our Earlier Calculation. Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, n5 p52-55
Fall
1994. 
Horner, Constance. "Reclaiming the Vision: What should we do after affirmative action?" 
The Brookings Review Summer 1995: 6-11.
Knight, Al. "Affirmative-Action Flaws Persist." Denver Post May 14, 1989: 1H, 2H.
Reprinted
from SIRS 1989 Work, Volume 4, Article 49.