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Originally Posted by Columbia Encyclopedia
Affirmative action, in the United States, programs to overcome the effects of past societal discrimination by allocating jobs and resources to members of specific groups, such as minorities and women. The policy was implemented by federal agencies enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and two executive orders, which provided that government contractors and educational institutions receiving federal funds develop such programs. The Equal Employment Opportunities Act (1972) set up a commission to enforce such plans. The establishment of racial quotas in the name of affirmative action brought charges of so-called reverse discrimination in the late 1970s. Although the U.S. Supreme Court accepted such an argument in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), it let existing programs stand and approved the use of quotas in 1979 in a case involving voluntary affirmative-action programs in unions and private businesses. In the 1980s, the federal government's role in affirmative action was considerably diluted. In three cases in 1989, the Supreme Court undercut court-approved affirmative action plans by giving greater standing to claims of reverse discrimination, voiding the use of minority set-asides where past discrimination against minority contractors was unproven, and restricting the use of statistics to prove discrimination, since statistics did not prove intent. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 reaffirmed a federal government's commitment to affirmative action, but a 1995 Supreme Court decision placed limits on the use of race in awarding government contracts; the affected government programs were revamped in the late 1990s to encompass any person who was socially disadvantaged. In the late 1990s, in a public backlash against perceived reverse discrimination, California and other states banned the use of race- and sex-based preferences in state and local programs. A 2003 Supreme Court decision concerning affirmative action in universities allowed educational institutions to consider race as a factor in admitting students as long as it was not used in a mechanical, formulaic manner. In Europe, the European Court of Justice has upheld (1997) the use in the public sector of affirmative-action programs for women, establishing a legal precedent for the nations of the European Unions
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In its tumultuous 45-year history, affirmative action has been both praised and pilloried as an answer to racial inequality. The term "affirmative action" was first introduced by President Kennedy in 1961 as a method of redressing discrimination that had persisted in spite of civil rights laws and constitutional guarantees. It was developed and enforced for the first time by President Johnson. "This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights," Johnson asserted. "We seek… not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result."
A Temporary Measure to Level the Playing Field
Focusing in particular on education and jobs, affirmative action policies required that active measures be taken to ensure that blacks and other minorities enjoyed the same opportunities for promotions, salary increases, career advancement, school admissions, scholarships, and financial aid that had been the nearly exclusive province of whites. From the outset, affirmative action was envisioned as a temporary remedy that would end once there was a "level playing field" for all Americans.
Bakke and Reverse Discrimination
By the late '70s, however, flaws in the policy began to show up amid its good intentions. Reverse discrimination became an issue, epitomized by the famous Bakke case in 1978. Allan Bakke, a white male, had been rejected two years in a row by a medical school that had accepted less qualified minority applicants-the school had a separate admissions policy for minorities and reserved 16 out of 100 places for minority students. The Supreme Court outlawed inflexible quota systems in affirmative action programs, which in this case had unfairly discriminated against a white applicant. In the same ruling, however, the Court upheld the legality of affirmative action per se.
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These examples outline why it is outdated. There are already laws in place that guarantee your right to a job, a college, a home, a purchase regardless of race, heritage, gender or religion.
Are we all sitting around the campfire singing Kumbaya? No. It'd be nice, but we aren't. Affirmative Action isn't going to make it happen, either.
The US is no longer just black and white with whites holding their thumbs over blacks and pointing firehoses at them when they try to vote. Two full generations have passed since the passing of the civil rights bill and longer since Kennedy first coined the phrase "Affirmative Action".
When does it stop kicking in and being an excuse? If, like these reports predict, the white population declines to less than half, can those white kids wanting to get into a school declare AA?
When it first came about(and a lot of you weren't born when this was thick in the news and atmosphere), police academies gave extra points to people of color and gender when they took their tests, as did fire academies, colleges, etc. This meant that more qualified people didn't get "on the list"; perfect scores meant nothing if you were a white male because anyone else that wasn't got their extra 25 points added in. Quotas were the goal, not having the best. "Reverse discrimination" became a rampantly used term in these situations. And it was, with a purpose. It has no purpose now and for the most part, is a non-issue because of so many laws in place. The Supreme Court was very busy trying to decipher it all.
Even both presidential candidates are, in one form or another, saying affirmative action has passed its prime. They're both going back and forth with their opinions, with Obama saying it should be a class issue, no longer a race one and McCain favoring its end, but the gist is, it's old.
Yes, Jinn, I was the "victim" of gender wage discrepancy. So I did what I was supposed to do-I went to the the state's EOC and filed a discrimination suit.
The phrase itself conjures up unfairness because of its origins. Discrimination as it stands is illegal; there are other, fairer and more significant ways to "level the playing field". I like to think, after forty years, we should have progressed some. I could be wrong...