Do We Still Need Affirmative Action?

Do We Still Need Affirmative Action?

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Martin Luther King spoke these words in 1963, and they still resonate today. Affirmative action programs were established to create this very type of equality, but have they brought us closer to Dr. King’s dream or hindered it?

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Jennifer Gratz

Equal Opportunity for All

Jennifer Gratz

American Civil Rights Institute

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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  • Jennifer Gratz
    Jennifer Gratz is Director of Research at the American Civil Rights Institute, was the lead plaintiff in the landmark US Supreme Court case, Gratz v. Bollinger... More

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