This paper examines whether affirmative action policies remain relevant in contemporary American society, with a focus on racial minorities including African-Americans and Latinos. It begins by defining affirmative action, tracing its historical roots from Reconstruction-era amendments through President Johnson's Executive Order 11246, and distinguishing between process-oriented and goal-oriented policy types. The paper then evaluates the major arguments made by supporters — including racial kinship, improved outcomes, and persistent racism — before critically assessing arguments against affirmative action, such as the arbitrariness of racial categories, moral objections rooted in colorblind ideals, and the psychological harm these policies may inflict on the minorities they intend to help. The paper concludes that goal-based affirmative action policies should be repealed while process-based approaches are preserved.
The paper demonstrates effective use of concession and rebuttal. It presents the strongest arguments for affirmative action first, acknowledges their validity, and then systematically shows why they fail to address the policies' practical shortcomings. This structure strengthens the final argument by showing it was reached after genuinely engaging with the opposing view.
The paper follows a classic analytical essay structure: a signposted introduction that previews each section, a background section defining terms and tracing history, two symmetrical body sections presenting opposing arguments with multiple sub-arguments each, and a conclusion that synthesizes a specific policy recommendation. The use of thematic sub-headings within body sections (e.g., "Arguments based on racial kinship," "Moral arguments against affirmative action") keeps complex multi-part arguments clearly organized.
Affirmative action policies grew out of a need to address the historic discrimination against minorities and women. Since its inception, affirmative action has helped open the door for many minorities seeking gainful employment and higher education. However, the same policies have also spawned charges of reverse discrimination against others and, paradoxically, of harming the very people they were intended to help.
This paper examines whether affirmative action policies remain relevant today, with a particular focus on racial minorities such as African-Americans and Latinos. The first part defines affirmative action, traces the policies' history, and examines their goals. The second part critically examines the arguments of affirmative action supporters. The third part studies the arguments against affirmative action by evaluating both the policies' effectiveness and their harmful consequences for African-Americans and other racial minorities.
This paper concludes that, though they were instituted with the best of intentions, current affirmative action policies are ineffective at addressing racial discrimination and have even had harmful effects on the people they were intended to help. Therefore, affirmative action policies should no longer be used as a major determinant in either employment decisions or acceptance into higher education institutions.
The term "affirmative action" has multiple but complementary meanings. Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy defines affirmative action as "policies that provide preferences based explicitly on membership in a designated group" (cited in Guernsey, 8–9). Affirmative action supporter Richard Wasserstrom sees it as a "program of preferential treatment…which set aside a certain number of places as to which members of minority groups who possess certain minimum qualifications may be preferred for admission to those places over some members of the majority group who possess higher qualifications" (198).
This classical definition of affirmative action as preferential treatment has since spawned more contentious characterizations. Opponents of affirmative action, such as law professor Lino Graglia, characterize it as "a euphemism for discrimination: the granting of preference to some individuals and therefore disfavoring of others on the basis of their race" (47).
For the purposes of this paper, affirmative action is defined neutrally as any policy or effort to facilitate racial integration in society by developing more opportunities in education and employment for people who have traditionally been marginalized in social, economic, and political life due to their gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, or disabilities.
Affirmative action grew out of efforts to rectify past injustices committed against racial minorities and, later, women. The term "minority" is relevant here, since recent Census Bureau reports indicate that African-Americans and people of Hispanic origin now outnumber white residents in some areas. However, for the purposes of this paper, "minorities" refers to people of Hispanic or non-Caucasian origin.
Though the policies were rooted in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875, these laws served as the basis for many of the civil rights laws enacted in the 1950s and 1960s, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. All of these policies paved the way for the eventual institution of affirmative action (Jenkins 1999).
The policies formally labeled "affirmative action" were first instituted by President Lyndon B. Johnson. In a historic 1965 commencement speech at Howard University, President Johnson acknowledged that the unemployment rates, income levels, poverty rates, and infant mortality rates of Black Americans were all far greater than those of white Americans.
Though he recognized the gains in civil rights represented by earlier legislation such as the Voting Rights Bill, Johnson pointed to how much remained to be done, saying: "Freedom is not enough…You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe you are competing fair" (17).
In the interests of ensuring such fair competition, President Johnson enacted Executive Order 11246 in 1965. EO 11246 mandated policies of "affirmative action," requiring federal contractors to "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." Two years later, President Johnson expanded the scope of affirmative action policies to benefit women as well.
According to law professor Paul Butler, the goals of affirmative action are threefold. The first, as initially recognized by President Johnson, was to remedy past discrimination and to place ethnic minorities on a level playing field. Butler also cites two additional goals: to address ongoing racial discrimination and to promote racial diversity in the workforce and in higher education. To achieve these goals, Butler distinguishes between two types of affirmative action — process-oriented policies and goal-oriented policies (Butler, cited in Williams, 2000).
Under process-oriented affirmative action, employers must ensure that job openings are advertised widely enough to reach interested minority applicants. Likewise, college recruiters must make special efforts to visit high schools with high minority populations in order to ensure racial balance in their applicant pool. Process-oriented policies focus on ensuring that all applicants are subject to the same tests, skills assessments, and interviews, so that every candidate receives fair and nondiscriminatory treatment.
Goal-oriented affirmative action goes one step further by giving minority status special consideration once a pool of qualified applicants has been established (Williams 2000). For example, when choosing between two equally qualified candidates, a university admissions officer may give a minority applicant extra consideration on the basis of race or ethnicity.
This consideration has given rise to allegations of "reverse discrimination" and preferential treatment. For this reason, goal-oriented affirmative action has become the subject of contentious debate.
Opinion polls reveal conflicting public perceptions of affirmative action. Most polls are worded abstractly and are designed to elicit strong responses — for example, asking whether racial quotas should give way to merit-based admission procedures.
However, in 1995 a poll conducted by the Harris Institution worded its question in concrete terms. Rather than asking abstract questions about the ethics of preferential treatment, the Harris Poll asked Americans whether they supported specific affirmative action programs they were personally familiar with in their own workplaces. The poll found that 80% of Euro-American workers "strongly support" the affirmative action programs they know about (Brookings Review 1998). Although these findings do not resolve whether affirmative action is fair, this widespread support indicates, at the very least, that affirmative action is not intrinsically undemocratic.
The little-reported Harris Poll bolstered efforts by supporters who argue for the continued need for affirmative action programs. Their arguments generally fall under four main types.
Arguments regarding racial pride often manifest in calls to "establish role models" and to "break racial stereotypes." Paul King, chair of the largest Black-owned construction firm in Chicago, cites the need to recognize Black pioneers such as opera singer Leontyne Price, former Chicago mayor Harold Washington, and Nelson Mandela. King argues that racial kinship is a necessity in a society where being Black places one at a disadvantage. He therefore rejects the argument that African-Americans should forsake racial kinship or pride in favor of individual achievement alone. For King, the fact that Black people like Price and Washington "succeed in a hostile environment gives me the moral basis to identify with and take pride in their achievements" (57).
This sense of racial kinship leads to the view that attempts to repeal affirmative action constitute a personal attack on individuals because of their race. However, framing attacks on affirmative action as attacks on a group's racial pride can obscure the real issues underlying the policies' problems.
Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy contests King's view, arguing that "neither racial pride nor racial kinship offers guidance that is intellectually, morally, or politically satisfactory" (47). Kennedy instead advocates pride in one's own individual achievements, viewing King's identification with the accomplishments of Leontyne Price or Harold Washington solely on the basis of shared skin color as misplaced. Such pride, Kennedy suggests, could also detract from a person's quest for individual achievement.
The different positions of Kennedy and King highlight an important schism in views on affirmative action. For supporters like King, affirmative action fosters recognition of the obstacles African-Americans continue to face collectively. To repeal affirmative action is therefore seen as an attack on Black individuals. Kennedy, by contrast, views racial kinship claims as unfounded, since Price's and Washington's achievements are individual accomplishments that opponents of affirmative action do not deny.
In their book The Shape of the River, former Princeton University president William Bowen and former Harvard University president Derek Bok argue for the necessity of goal-based affirmative action policies in colleges and universities. According to them, "if universities were flatly prohibited from considering race in admissions…over half the black students in selective colleges today would have been rejected" (124).
While opponents of affirmative action seize on Bowen and Bok's findings as evidence that affirmative action disregards merit, supporters like Jesse Jackson argue that measures of merit are themselves skewed. Jackson rejects any strong correlation between standardized test scores and academic or post-academic achievement, citing motivation as the true determinant of success (Jackson 1995). He further argues that many affluent white students have access to SAT preparation courses and the time and resources to participate in extracurricular activities and honors courses, placing many minority students from lower-income families — who must work after school and cannot afford test preparation — at a distinct disadvantage (Jackson 1995). For proponents like Jackson, affirmative action is a way to address these discrepancies and ensure that disadvantaged youth receive equal opportunity in higher education.
Martin Michaelson takes Jackson's argument further, contending that affirmative action policies benefit all college students, not just minority ones. Michaelson asserts that race- and ethnicity-sensitive admissions policies have had negligible effects on the admission rates of white students. Instead, the admission of minority students brings a healthy racial diversity to campus — a diversity that enhances the personal and academic development of all students (Michaelson 1999). Furthermore, giving more racial minorities access to higher education has a long-term effect of facilitating the growth of a minority middle class of professionals (Michaelson 1999). If Michaelson is right, this access to education could have important long-term implications for addressing the socioeconomic problems faced by racial minorities today.
Against those who argue that affirmative action policies should be repealed because they have served their purpose, proponents maintain that racism continues unabated in American society, albeit in more subtle forms. For example, out of nearly 15,000 pilots in the U.S. Air Force, only 300 are African-American (Schipler 1998). White men remain disproportionately represented in Congress, tenured professorships, law firm partnerships, and managerial jobs, among other positions. Jesse Jackson also points out that white men comprise "100% of U.S. presidents" at the time of his writing (103).
The proponents of affirmative action have successfully argued the necessity of addressing inequities brought about by race and gender. They have also demonstrated the need for minority access to gainful employment, to decision-making positions in economic and political institutions, and to higher education.
However, these arguments fail to address the effectiveness of affirmative action in solving these problems. Current affirmative action policies are largely ineffective at addressing the harm caused by racism, and the continued application of goal-based affirmative action to higher education may negate its gains and harm the very minorities these policies were designed to help.
In summary, proponents of affirmative action argue for the continued need to address the harmful effects of racism. They point to how affirmative action policies have opened the door for racial and ethnic minorities to seek higher education and to enter decision-making positions in political and economic life. They also emphasize the importance of racial kinship and pride, viewing affirmative action as a means of ensuring that minority communities share in collective success.
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