Affirmative Action Is Defined as

Affirmative Action is defined as the taking of proactive steps to ensure that minorities and women are adequately (and therefore, from a historical perspective, increasingly) represented in today's economy. This, in today's world, is a controversial topic; because, the presumption is if a sub-section of society is given preferential treatment then certainly it introduces biases into that system. This essay will be an opinion against affirmative action. This essayist will also attempt to address the assigned readings for this essay. All three readings are supportive of affirmative action.

Affirmative action is premised on aiding a section of society to ensure an artifice -- representation or to redress perceived historical loss. During the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties, in the United State, leaders fought for equal rights. The Civil Rights movement was justified because one group (Caucasians) was given preferential treatment. Under- representation of African-Americans was generally (and unfairly) considered acceptable. In recent times, one of the cases which came under scrutiny was that of Michigan School Admissions at for undergraduates and law school.

(Cornell 2003) the Supreme Court struck down the affirmative action law for undergraduate admissions; but, the law school admissions lawsuit was struck down in favor of affirmative action. The Michigan Law School example is used by Stephen Steinberg to criticize conservative commentator and opponent of affirmative action Nathan Glazer. (Steinberg 2003) Steinberg believes that affirmative action should be universal. Steinberg uses ad hominem attacks against Glazer (about his education and his religion), and accuses him of believing in affirmative action for Jews, but not supporting extending these to African-Americans.

Steinberg starts out with the premise that affirmative action is CORRECT, but does nothing to support his claims convincingly. In another article, Steinberg brings up the idea of affirmative action being just rewards for many years of slavery and the years of civil ostracizing of blacks from society through the 19th and 20th century history, at the expense of jobs for immigrants from Asia, Europe and Latin America.

(Steinberg 1999) William Darity, writing in "The State of Black America 1999," espouses this view, believing that affirmative action is acceptable because, though it might not be a proper solution, it serves to balance out racial inequality. (Darity 1999) Darity has provided proof that when trained actors went to look for jobs, the blacks among them were rejected. Affirmative Action helps foster wealth equality, which according to Darity, sees a significant gap between whites and blacks.

Darity makes an important point that white people believed that the problems of civil equality had been solved after the civil rights movement, but the bigotry and inequalities continue. To this, this essayist responds that though raising the standards of one subsection of society is a noble cause, set asides is not the way to go about it, certainly reverse discrimination isn't. Even if affirmative action was widely accepted, Darity does not provide a date by which wealth-parity would be established.

Certainly, Professor Darity does not wish to have affirmative action go on indefinitely, considering he believes that it is not the best solution. Another reading is titled "Economic Costs of Affirmative Action." (Badgett et al. 1995) Four authors here explore costs of affirmative action, the negative stereotyping that goes with affirmatives action, and how productivity is impacted through affirmative action. At no point in this work do they demonstrate that affirmative action is an economic success or brings about the goals it envisions.

They explore the possible losses to businesses mainly due to the costs of regulations and compliance and believe that these losses are acceptable for the supposed greater good. What these four commentators, who are writing about economy, don't seem to grasp is the simple economic concept that employers create wealth in collusion with employees that are best qualified for their positions -- irrespective of race or gender. Asking employers to comply with laws that cost them significant overheads reduces profits.

This loss is borne by employees, shareholders and gets passed on to the consumers. One of the arguments that all the writers make is that despite the issue of merit, some employers are inherently racist. This may be true in that people always have an internal bias in them, about different things.

But what becomes the best corrector against race-based hiring is that not having the best employees for a job will cut into profit margins and cause employers to gladly hire African-Americans if they are most qualified for a position. The alternative is to go out of business. What the authors also do not realize is that the market forces are the best forces to ensure equity and employment and not outside artificial interference. The next paragraph will show this.

One of the difficulties in arguing against affirmative action is that any such analysis comes across as racist. But one of the best examples of why affirmative action should be eschewed is professional sports in the United States, where African-Americans have financially benefited in ways that even the wealthiest whites cannot even imagine. Before the civil rights movement, blacks athletes, who were more talented and had a natural instinct for these sports were deliberately kept out of these leagues by racist policies. Sports suffered as a result.

But post-segregation, the best at the sports got a chance to play it, spectatorship increased and African-Americans athletes made more money. Affirmative action wasn't and isn't needed because the best play at these sports having undergone a rigorous vetting process that starts at little league, high school and college. Profit making is critical for any capitalistic economy, which is the best type there is. What proves beneficial to people is competition, and not governmental regulations.

What none of the writers of the papers, or for his perfect intentions, Professor Darity, seem to touch on is that African-Americans in this country (of course there are many, many noted exceptions) in general have a poor history of educating them selves, and not taking advantage of educational opportunities that are available through free public schooling. What Stephen Steinberg, himself a Jew (as his last name indicates) does not realize that for Jewish, education is equated with religion.

This enables the Jewish to hold jobs that require a higher education, which is the direct line to acquiring wealth. The African-American Leadership in this country, or at least in the last few decades, has been.