Affirmative Action Is the General Term Used

Affirmative action is the general term used to describe the de facto and de jure social policies that attempt to eliminate or alleviate the challenges that racial minorities have faced in the United States over nearly the entire history of the nation. Acts of discrimination became a particularly extreme social problem after the U.S. Civil war and during the early years of the reformation, when the nation and its people were attempting to reconcile old hatreds and beliefs of inequality with laws that did not reflect their unfortunately harsh discriminatory opinions.

Affirmative action as it is seen today is the results of such struggles, as the civil rights movement. It is in practice the recognition of race as a determining factor for the ability of some to be accepted to colleges and universities, which have previously been attended mostly by the racial majority, and/or receiving preferential treatment in hiring, especially where government contractors are concerned.

The debate over the effectiveness and continued usefulness and even the constitutionality of affirmative action laws and policies has ensued over the last twenty or so years with those in favor of continues use of such policies claiming that they have not had enough time to truly change the system to more equally represent racial minorities and those on the reverse side claiming these policies as unconstitutional and discriminatory against the racial majority.

Research on affirmative action has of coarse demonstrated mixed results about its effectiveness and those in favor of it of coarse continue to demonstrate findings that ally their cause, stating that it has been marginally effective and could become more effective if continued. Those against affirmative action demonstrate the negative aspects of affirmative action stating many personal experiences where affirmative action has resulted in possible or real discrimination against the racial majority through giving preferential treatment to some based on race or gender and passing over more qualified individuals simply because they are among the racial majority.

Within the affirmative action camp there are many examples of research that demonstrate the effectiveness of affirmative action as more and more colleges, universities and employers are demonstrating numbers of racial minority members that has been previously unheard of in these areas before. They contend that the evolution of success of such policies demands more time as changing the social current of a nation is a gradual process only just begun. Within the work there are also many who demonstrate the fact that there are still clear indications of the need for the policies because though the numbers are looking better than say 25 years ago they are not representative of the statistical frequency of those racial minorities in the total population. In the opposite camp many advocates of the opposing view use the same research statistics to argue that affirmative action has been wholly unproductive and therefore should be eliminated.