End Racial Preferences? Affirmative Action Was an

¶ … End Racial Preferences? Affirmative action was an imperfect solution to the problems which riddled an imperfect society. Centuries of slavery, subjugation, misogyny and other issues contributed to a society where the playing field in America has been far less than equal for an enormous amount of time. This means that women and minorities often have to struggle and work twice as hard to get ahead and often don't.

Affirmative action was designed as a means of attempting to level out the playing field, so that these groups could have more of a fair shot at getting into better schools and securing more desirable jobs.

Obama has been quoted as still being a supporter of affirmative action as a positive and effective means of discouraging decades of historic and current discrimination; however, as Obama advises, affirmative action has to be more than a simple quote system and take into consideration the whole person, regardless of the fact that the person might be black, Hispanic, white, female or male (Katel, 2008). Regardless, the opinions on affirmative action remain divided.

Some criticize it as a mere quota system; others argue that it really is necessary given the hundreds upon hundreds of years of racial discrimination which have subsisted in the America. This paper will show that affirmative action is necessary, but the system is too flawed to remain as it is: affirmative action deserves a safe place in American society, but it first needs to be vigorously revamped in order to be successful.

The following is an example of how flawed the current system of affirmative action is, and how it is in need of real change in order to be useful. "A white student in Texas argues that she was denied admission to the University of Texas while minorities with similar qualifications were accepted. The state's university policy is to admit most students based on their high school class rank -- the top 10% get in -- but to then also choose some students who had lower rankings and who are underrepresented minorities.

The student who filed the suit says this is unconstitutional" (Matthews, 2012). Whether or not courts determine that this is unconstitutional remains to be seen. Regardless, there is a certain amount of unfairness which is directly connected to such an admissions practice. This admissions practice radiates a certain amount of preferential treatment to minorities, in a generally biased way. The current system of affirmative action would be greatly improved to imitate California's state admissions system which is founded on class rank and non-racial factors like income/poverty.

As Obama has sufficiently pointed out, his daughters won't need to rely on their race to get into better schools or to receive scholarships, but that poor kids, such as white poor kids would need extra support. Using California as an example is something that more and more experts are doing when it comes to the debate on affirmative action and with good reason. "California became the first state to abolish state-sanctioned affirmative action in education and contracts, through a ballot initiative in 1996.

That's not because white voters here, who overwhelmingly supported the measure, have more negative feelings toward minorities. Nor is it because they are more committed to fairness and absolute colorblindness than Anglos elsewhere. It happened here, quite simply, because minorities were fast approaching 50% of the population and whites felt that the playing field had tilted against them" (Rodriguez, 2010). California is such a great example in this case because it clearly demonstrates the importance of being flexible and adaptable.

California was able to revise their policies so that they better reacted to the realities of race in the state and so that they were more equipped with dealing with the needs of the various people living there. The "minority races" were no longer minorities in California, and the state was able to react in a reasonable and concerted fashion.

This is part of the reason that requests to scrap affirmative action are so prevalent, as the rest of the country starts to look more and more like California: diverse, with large sections of the population made up of ethnic minorities. This means that more and more whites are going to become the minority, and thus seek to protect their self-interest and attempt to prevent themselves from being victimized.

More states need to follow California's lead, as California was able to end outdated affirmative action programs without divisive battles or pain or intense suffering. As one expert explained, "We don't need the remedy for institutionalized racism to create more racial.