Affirmative Action; Any Current Relevance?
...women. Considering the subject of affirmative action the following questions frequently are raised: Is there a clear understanding of affirmative action roles/goals? What are the pros/cons of these programs? Has affirmative action helped improve the Per Capita & Median Income of African-Americans? To totally understand the roles and goals of affirmative action, one must first know the government’s definition of this program. On October 1977 the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights defines affirmative action as “any measure, beyond simple termination of a discriminatory practice, adopted to correct or compensate for past or present discrimination or to prevent discrimination from recurring in the future.”(4) When the commission established this definition, various companies and educational institutions began to extended employment and enrollment of minorities; particularly African-Americans; into historically white universities and corporations. Since the inception of affirmative action The Census Bureau has reported in 2004, that the African-American percentage of high school graduates enrolled in college has increased 17.3% since 1967. Percentage of High School Graduates in College from Ages 18 to 24 Provided the U.S. Census Bureau (5) Addressing these key questions about affirmative action may help us all in our daily understanding of the subject matter, but what are the pros and cons of this program that was initiated over forty-two years ago? Below you will find a chart created by Joe Messerli of balancedpolotics.org (3) about the pros and cons of what the American public thinks about affirmative action. Cons Pros 1. Affirmative action leads to reverse discrimination. 2. Affirmative action lowers standards of accountability needed to push students or employees to perform better. 3. Students admitted on this basis are often ill-equipped to handle the schools to which they've been admitted. 4. It would help lead a truly color-blind society. 5. It is condescending to minorities to say they need affirmative action to succeed. 6. It demeans true minority achievement; i.e. success is labeled as result of affirmative action rather than hard work and ability. 1. Diversity is desirable and won't always occur if left to chance. 2. Students starting at a disadvantage need a boost. 3. Affirmative action draws people to areas of study and work they may never consider otherwise. 4. Some stereotypes may never be broken without affirmative action. 5. Affirmative action is needed to compensate minorities for centuries of slavery or oppression Affirmative action programs throughout the United States have long been a controversial issue particularly concerning employment practices (public/private) and university student and/or staff recruitment. Most public agencies have used some type of instituted affirmative action and have duly benefited from the diversity that affirmative action has brought about in the work place. Because of affirmative action students who could not generally attend or afford to attend a historically white university can now partake in the enriching experience of a large university. In regards to the corporate sector, companies can now benefit from having minorities on staff to broaden the horizon of the company as well as make the work place more diverse. Now, since the work place and educational institutions are and have been diversifying themselves with various different cultural backgrounds, one would think that the Median Household Income and Per Capit...