Affirmative Action (1538 words)
Affirmative Action
Once upon a time, there were two people who went to an interview for only one
job position at the same company. The first person attended a prestigious and
highly academic university, had years of work experience in the field and, in
the mind of the employer, had the potential to make a positive impact on the
company’s performance. The second person was just starting out in the field
and seemed to lack the ambition that was visible in his opponent. “Who was
chosen for the job?” you ask. Well, if the story took place before 1964, the
answer would be obvious. However, with the somewhat recent adoption of the
social policy known as affirmative action, the answer becomes unclear. After the
United States Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964,it became apparent
that certain business traditions, such as seniority status and aptitude tests,
prevented total equality in employment. Then President, Lyndon B. Johnson,
decided something needed to be done to remedy these flaws. On September 24,
1965, he issued Executive Order #11246 at Howard University that required
federal contractors “to take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are
employed . . . without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin
(Civil Rights).” When Lyndon Banes Johnson signed that order, he enacted one
of the most discriminating pieces of legislature since the Jim Crow Laws were
passed. Affirmative action was created in an effort to help minorities leap the
discriminative barriers that were ever so present when the bill was first
enacted, in 1965. At this time, the country was in the wake of nationwide
civil-rights demonstrations, and racial tension was at its peak. Most of the
corporate executive and managerial positions were occupied by white males, who
controlled the hiring and firing of employees. The U.S. government, in 1965,
believed that these employers were discriminating against minorities and
believed that there was no better time than the present to bring about change.
When the Civil Rights Law passed, minorities, especially African-Americans,
believed that they should receive retribution for the years of discrimination
they endured. The government responded by passing laws to aide them in attaining
better employment as reprieve for the previous two hundred years of suffering
their race endured at the hands of the white man. To many, this made sense.
Supporters of affirmative action asked, “why not let the government help them
get better jobs?” After all, the white man was responsible for their
suffering. While this may all be true, there is another question to be asked.
Are we truly responsible for the years of persecution that the African Americans
were submitted to? The answer to the question is yes and no. It is true that the
white man is partly responsible for the suppression of the African- American
race. However, the individual white male is not. It is just as unfair and
suppressive to hold many white males responsible for past persecution now as it
was to discriminate against many African-Americans in the generations before.
Why should an honest, hard-working, open minded, white male be suppressed,
today, for past injustice? Affirmative action accepts and condones the idea of
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Do two wrongs make a right? I think
mother taught us better than that. Affirmative action supporters make one large
assumption when defending the policy. They assume that minority groups want
help. This, however, may not always be the case. My experience with minorities
has led me to believe that they fought to attain equality, not special
treatment. To them, the acceptance of special treatment is an admittance of
inferiority. They ask, “Why can’t I become successful on my own? Why do I
need laws to help me get a job?” These African Americans want to be treated as
equals, not as incompetents. In a statement released in 1981 by the United
States Commission on Civil Rights, Jack P. Hartog, who directed the project,
said: Only if discrimination were nothing more than the misguided acts of a few
prejudiced individuals would affirmative action plans be “reverse
discrimination.” Only if today’s society were operating fairly toward
minorities and women would measures that take race, sex, and national origin
into account be “preferential treatment.” Only if discrimination were
securely placed in a well-distant past would affirmative action be an unneeded
and drastic remedy. What the commission failed to realize was that there are
thousands of white males who are not discriminating yet are being punished
because of those who do. The Northern Natural Gas Company of Omaha, Nebraska,
was forced by the government to release sixty-five white male workers to make
room for minority employees in 1977 (Nebraska Advisory Committee 40). Five major
Omaha corporations reported that the number of white managers fell 25% in 1969
due to restrictions put on them when affirmative action was adopted (Nebraska
Advisory Committee 27). You ask, “What did these white males do to bring about
their termination?” The only crime that they were guilty of was being white.
This hardly seems fair to punish so many innocent men for the crimes of a
relative few. But the injustice toward the white male doesn’t end there. After
the white male has been fired, he has to go out and find a new job to support
his family that depended on the company to provide health care and a retirement
plan in return for years of hard work. Now, because of affirmative action, this
white male, and the thousands like him, require more skills to get the same job
that a lesser qualified black man needs. This is, for all intents and purposes,
discrimination, and it is a law that our government strictly enforces.
Affirmative action is not only unfair for the working man, it is extremely
discriminatory toward the executive, as well. The average business executive has
one goal in mind, and that is to maximize profits. To reach his goal, this
executive would naturally hire the most competent man or woman for the job,
whether they be black or white or any other race. Why would a business man
intentionally cause his business to lose money by hiring a poorly qualified
worker? Most wouldn’t. With this in mind, it seems unnecessary to employ any
policy that would cause him to do otherwise. But, that is exactly what
affirmative action does. It forces an employer, who needs to meet a quota
established by the government, to hire the minority, no matter who is more
qualified. Another way that affirmative action deducts from a company’s
profits is by forcing them to create jobs for minorities. This occurs when a
company does not meet its quota with existing employees and has to find places
to put minorities. These jobs are often unnecessary, and force a company to pay
for workers that they do not need. Now, don’t get the impression that
affirmative action is only present in the work place. It is also very powerful
in education. Just as a white male employee needs more credentials to get a job
than his minority opponent, a white male student needs more or better skills to
get accepted at a prestigious university than a minority student. There are
complete sections on college applications dedicated to race and ethnic
background. Colleges must now have a completely diverse student body, even if
that means some, more qualified students, must be turned away. A perfect example
of this can be found at the University of California at Berkeley. A 1995 report
released by the university said that 9.7% of all accepted applicants were
African American. Only 0.8% of these African American students were accepted by
academic criteria alone. 36.8% of the accepted applicants were white. Of these
accepted white students, 47.9% were accepted on academic criteria alone. That
means that approximately sixty times more African Americans students were
accepted due to non-academic influences than white students. It seems hard to
believe that affirmative action wasn’t one these outside influences. Another
interesting fact included in the 1995 report said that the average grade point
average for a rejected white student was 3.66 with an average SAT score of 1142.
The average grade point average for an accepted African American student was
3.66 with a 1030 average SAT score. These stunning facts shows just how many
competent, if not gifted students fall between the cracks as a direct result of
affirmative action (Affirmative action). Well, I believe that the problem has
been identified; affirmative action is becoming a form of reverse
discrimination. It is now time for the doctor to prescribe a potential remedy.
Society should work towards broad based economic policies like public
investment, national health reform, an enlarged income tax credit, child support
assurance, and other policies benefiting families with young children. Widely
supported programs that promote the interests of both lower and middle class
Americans that deliver benefits to minorities and whites on the basis of their
economic status, and not their race or ethnicity, will do more to reduce
minority poverty than the current, narrowly based, poorly supported policies
that single out minority groups. However, if this, or another remedy is not
taken sometime in the near future, and affirmative action continues to separate
minority groups from whites, we can be sure to see racial tension reach points
that our history has never seen.
Bibliography
“Affirmative Action at the University of California at Berkeley” Online.
October 28, 1996. http://pwa.acusd.edu/~e_cook/ucb-95.html “Civil Rights”
Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia. (1996). [Computer Program] SoftKey
Multimedia International Corporation. United States. Commission on Civil Rights.
Affirmative Action in the 1980’s: Dismantling the Process of Discrimination.
Washington: 1981. United States. Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights. Private Sector Affirmative Action: Omaha.
Washington: 1979.
