Saving Affirmative Action Laws Affirmative action laws apply to many sections of societal interactions be it school admissions, business, or employee hiring, they attempt to balance the history of racial discrimination that marked the period before the laws came into being. Affirmative action requires that persons making decisions relating to employment, business and education take into account factors such as religion, sex, color, race and national origin. The major advantage of the laws is that they promote the opportunities available for minority groups in the society. The major proponent of the laws is that they compensate for persecution, discrimination and exploitation that was present in the past. Over the last few years, there has been debate on the benefits and harms brought about by affirmative action with several arguing that though it has met its intended benefits, the law also disadvantages minority groups since they may end up in institutions that will not serve them as well as less elite ones would. Therefore there is a need to examine the benefits and harms brought about by affirmative action in the quest to create new solutions that would benefit the whole population.

History of affirmative action

Affirmative action was introduced by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 as one of the methods of addressing discrimination that was quite rampant in spite of constitutional rights and civil rights laws. However, the idea was first developed and enforced by President Lyndon B. Johnson four years later. In Executive Order 11246, President Johnson prohibited employers from using race, religion, color and national origin as discriminative factors. He them amended the law two years later in 1967 to include sex. Everything seemed to be going well until the late 70s when reverse discrimination became rampant. Several whites were irked by rejection from institutions that they qualified to as a result of places being reserved for less qualified minorities.

In 1986, affirmative action was put to the test in Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education when the Board of Education laid off white...

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first problem arising from affirmative action laws. According to the theory of mismatch, affirmative action harms those who it is supposed to help by affording them opportunities which they fall below the median ability level. Therefore these individuals have a tough time coping with the situation at present an even in the future )

. In a systemic review published, it was found that students who gain special admission to elite schools on partly nonacademic grounds are likely to struggle more and this adversely affects their outcomes. Thus they have lower pass rates, problems fitting into the job market and higher attrition rates. The analysis established that the magnitude of these effects outweighed the benefits of prestige Sander, 2004.

The mismatch theory has been disputed by several professors. Ho (2011)

stated that minority students afforded positions on partly nonacademic grounds perform equally as well as the others on the bar irrespective of their history.

As posited by (///), mismatching leads to increased dropout rates as a result of the non-minority students being unable to survive in the elite and competitive institutions where they preferentially entered on partly nonacademic merits. Critics have, however, argued that without affirmative action, the number of non-minority professionals would decrease greatly.

Second problem: reverse discrimination

Affirmative action has over the years led to many cases regarding reverse discrimination. This has increased the attention and pressure on law makers to have a second look at the situation. According to affirmative action laws, women and minorities are entitled to preferential treatment. These two groups account for two thirds of the population…