Equal Opportunity for All
In 1996 a California court declared that “affirmative action” is an “amorphous, value-laden term” (see Lungren v. Superior Court). Therefore, before exploring whether it is time to end affirmative action, one must recognize that the phrase affirmative action means different things to different people. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy first introduced the nation to the concept of affirmative action. Executive Order 10925 stated that affirmative action must be taken to “ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." Kennedy’s message was simple – treat all people equally, without regard to race.
The type of affirmative action that President Kennedy describes should not be eliminated. Everyone, regardless of race or gender, should be guaranteed an equal opportunity to compete for good paying jobs, contracts, and college admissions. However, in time, various programs have carelessly introduced policies that actually discriminate by granting racial preferences and have done so in the name of “affirmative action.”
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson started the nation down this path, when he stated: “You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe you have been completely fair.” Today, many “affirmative action” programs do exactly what they originally sought to outlaw – namely granting a preference to one race or gender, while discriminating against another.
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I agree entirely. While the minority "hiring quota" may have served its purpose fifty years ago there is no need for it now. And I have lost track of how many of my friends have lost a job to a minority, not because they were better qualified, but because the company had not filled their quota. College minority student quotas do the same thing.
There are so many double standards as far as race goes. Such as the race specific scholarships to colleges. Instead of those we need more scholarships for underprivlaged children in general. If a white group made a whites only scholarship there would be cries of racism . This has already happened when one man made a very low benefit (Less than $50 I believe) white scholarship and the resulting uproar was nothing short of astronomical.
And the same goes for things like "Miss black America" and the Black Entertainment network.
I want my daughter to grow up in a world where she has an equal chance no matter what she does. Isn't that what black people fought so hard for in the first place?
I agree with everything that's been said here and the expert argument. However, we need to take it a step further. This is not just about "fairness" but also about the morality of the law itself. If a business owner is a racist , and refuses to hire minorities for some reason, this is absolutely immoral. However, the alternative that affirmative action offers, and that many people here would endorse as a measure to ensure "equality", would be for the government to force the business owner, however irrational or racist he might be, to hire minorities. Using physical force to solve racism is an unethical solution - it is not the government's prerogative to enforce "equality" like this, but rather to defend every citizen's rights.
In other words, if a racist were to try to harm or physically harass a minority in some way, then it would be the government's valid role to stop this. This involves the rights of the citizen. However, it should not be the government's role to force an employer to look at applicants equally - the employer owns his business and should have the right to do whatever he wants with it, regardless of how biased he might be. Allowing the government to use physical force to mold the culture is immoral, and presents a slippery slope. Instead, private citizens can boycott the racist's company, and the company will either fail or the owner will abandon his racist hiring methods in order to stay in business. This is a moral solution to racism in the marketplace. Using the government's monopoly on force is not.
Honestly, my take on affirmative action is that it often takes away jobs from the better suited person. In a nation where the white, middle-aged, protestant man has now become the person most often discriminated against, affirmative action is a step in the wrong direction. The person best suited for a job should always be the person to whom it is granted, regardless of race, gender, sexual preference, etc. A company should not be required to employ a certain amount of a certain type of person. I also, though, believe in the right of a SMALL BUSINESS OWNER to hire or not hire a person based on whatever they so choose to. It may not do their business good, but they own the business, they should have the right. Not the same goes, though, for large corporations. If a person honestly feels they are being denied a job at some corporation because of race, gender, etc. they should have the right to speak up about it. but it should no longer be a way for people of a certain ethnicity or whatever to be granted a job, no questions asked.
I sure would've liked affirmative action to be on my side if I decided to join a basketball team and not show up for practices. No doubt in my mind that I would feel a sense of pride knowing that people who actually had the skill lost their opportunity to me.