Affirmative Action Is an Extremely Important Concept

Affirmative Action is an extremely important concept since it is vital to the operation of America as a democracy. It reinforces the affirmation of the Constitution that all people are born equal and should, therefore, be given an equal chance to prove themselves. Employment opportunity (and other factors) should be based on merit rather than on extraneous factors such as skin color, race, gender, physiology, and so forth.

The Federal Register states that "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin" (http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/11246.html) should not be considered when evaluating the candidate's chance for "areas of employment, education, and business" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/affirmative-action/.).

The principles of affirmative action exist in almost all countries. Their policies vary but their fundamentals are, more or less, the same.

A. How Affirmative Action came to be

The term first came into effect with JF Kennedy in 1961 when he signed the Executive Order 10925. The order in effect stated that:

"[employers are] not [allowed to] discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin & #8230;. [They must also] take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, "Executive Order 10925 -- Establishing The President's Committee On Equal Employment Opportunity." http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/history/35th/thelaw/eo-10925.html)

President Lyndon B. Johnson elaborated on the policy in Executive Order 11246 obligating government divisions to hire employees regardless of consideration of country, race, and religion. He insisted that "[government] promote the full realization of equal employment opportunity through a positive, continuing program in each executive department and agency" (ibid)

Affirmative Action was only extended to females much later with Executive Order 11375 and with Executive Order 11246 on 13 October 1967. The most recent Executive Order 11246 contains all these requirements.

The original intent of Affirmative Action was to pressure institutions to comply with Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to provide nondiscrimination to other bodies not mentioned in that Act such as veterans, people with disabilities, or people over 40 who are protected under different laws.

Affirmative action has become a controversial subject that has instigated various law suits. Conservative activists for instance insist that colleges quietly use quota systems to limit students of particular races. Other cases feature Reverse Discrimination.

B. Reverse Discrimination-explain / define and cite at least two supreme court cases

Reverse Discrimination refers to the reverse situation when in endeavor to conform to dictates of affirmative action, meritorious White students or individuals are rejected form the position even though they are meritorious. The first Supreme Court case that represented this was in 1975 with Regents of the University of California v. Bakke where the University of Calif., Davis, and Medical School rejected Allan Bakke, a White student, twice even though his scores were significantly higher than those of minority students who were accepted. The Court was closely divided on v the issue but the end result was that strict quotas could not be used in delimiting students, even though matters of race were still legitimate.

In 2003, Grutter v. Bollinge Justice O'Connor ruled that whilst the University of Michigan Law School's acted in a correct and individualized manner in selecting and accepting students in their law program (evaluating on terms of merit rather than race whilst still incorporating tenets of Affirmative action, their undergraduate admissions system was lacking in that they distributed 20 point to black, Hispanic, and American-Indian applicants regardless of merit with focus placed solely on race, religion, and ethnicity. This was incorrect since individual factors should have also been taken into consideration in making choice, and the result was reverse discrimination.

( Infoplease)

III. Examples of Affirmative Action Problems or Situations-Explain how these problems or situations mean that Affirmative Action should be abolished regarding race discrimination in the educational process

The above examples are excellent illustrations f problems that can occur with Affirmative Action and of where people go too far in trying to meet its principles. In terms of the education institutions, t least, worthy students are at risk of being turned away due to these universities and colleges have to meet the quota of accepting certain minority students. These however may be problematic to the university (in terms of behavior or skills) or may not qualify. Accepting them will mean turning away better qualified (and possibly equally needy) White students. This also is unconstitutional since each individual should be judged on the basis of merit alone. In this way, affirmative action should be hedged with conditions and should probably apply more in some circumstances than others. Certainly, academic institutions should accept individuals of minority race, but they should not do so at the detriment of other more worthy students nor to the detriment of the reputation of their institution.

IV. Summary and Conclusions-summarize the issue and how you define it, the main point of your position and your informed conclusions about what is likely to happen regarding the issue

In short, my conclusion is that the American government should base its rulings on the Constitution. The Constitution insists that all be judged according to merit rather than according to extraneous elements. This refers to all races both White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and so forth -- as well as all other factors. The day that the Brown decision was put into effect was a celebratory day for the Black race -- and indeed for humanity in general -- and for good reason. Justice Felix Frankfurter, commented that it was "a day that will live in glory… and a great day in the history of the Court." Similarly, Justice Harold Burton called it "a great day for America and the Court" whilst the justices' law clerks remembered it as a day on which they felt "good -- and clean. It was so good." (Clark, 2004).