Affirmative Action In US Essay, Research Paper
Affirmative action is wrong and will not help solve the problems minorities
face. The reason it is wrong is because it’s discrimination. It has no place in
today’s society in today’s society because it does more bad than good. In
addition to that most people don’t enjoy the presence of affirmative action.
Also, it appears that affirmative action can actually be detrimental to
employees health. First of all, affirmative action is discrimination, there is
no hiding it. When an employer hires anyone because he or she is a minority,
even if someone else if more qualified to do the job, it is discrimination. Just
because it is reverse discrimination, when whites are discriminated against and
minorities are being discriminated for, doesn’t make it right. Affirmative
action legalizes discrimination (Steele 1990, 39). "I thought
discrimination was illegal in this country (Buchanan 1995, 1)." Also, if
this discrimination continues racism in the United States may become worse.
Imagine what you would feel like if you couldn’t get a job just because you are
a white man and not a hispanic man. The racism will become worse because of it,
and that is the very thing it is trying to prevent. It is possible that because
of affirmative action, racism will grow and continue to grow until we history
repeats itself and we end up living under Jim Crow laws again. That is an extr!
eme possibility to end up under Jim Crow laws again, but it is a definite
possibility to end up somewhere close to Jim Crow laws again. In addition to
that, people say affirmative action is ok because it cures past discrimination
(Keyes 1996, 1). Discrimination wasn’t ok when blacks were the ones getting the
short end of the stick. Therefore it’s not ok when whites are discriminated
against (DeWit 1996, 1). Two wrongs don’t make a right. Therefore, affirmative
action doesn’t make discrimination ok just because it’s against blacks instead
of whites. Affirmative action in college is the most discriminating thing this
country has ever seen since the Jim Crow laws many years ago (Buchanan 1995, 1).
At ivy league colleges the median GPA of applicants is close to 4.0 and S.A.T.’s
are close to 1300, minorities are let in with GPA’s less than 3.0 and S.A.T.’s
less than 1000 (D’Souza 1990, 231). The only way for colleges to achieve ethnic
proportionalism is to downplay or abandon merit criteria and to accept students
from typically under represented groups, such as blacks, hispanics, and american
indians, over better qualified students from among whites and asian americans (D’Souza
1990, 231). Obviously, affirmative action is allowing undereducated citizens to
get into college when the people that are qualified aren’t getting accepted when
they should. When we passed the equal opportunities law, it didn’t mean treat
different races differently, it means we should treat all people as equals,
affirmative action doesn’t treat everyone as equals (Hacker 1990, 229). If we
lower acceptance standards for minorities, we should lower standards for
everyone. Since nobody would do that we should raise the standard for
minorities. In addition, if affirmative action gets its way, it will do more
harm than good. Affirmative action will only work short term because if you hire
a minority that’s under qualified they’ll eventually get fired. Also, you can
only hire so many people, eventually you’ll get too much under qualified people
working for you and you’ll eventually have to abandon affirmative action all
together. Also, affirmative action doesn’t work because it doesn’t change
anything (Keyes 1996, 1). If there is racism in today’s modern age, then racism
will always be present and affirmative action won’t work. In addition if we need
to discriminate against white people to give minorities jobs now, it won’t
change. Giving someone a job won’t do any good in making the quality of life of
minorities better. Just because you enroll more minorities in your college,
doesn’t mean you’re making the playing field even. When someone isn’t good
enough to get into a certain college, they’re out of their l! eague when they
get in. Only 15% of black and 22% of hispanic affirmative action students
accepted to Berkeley in 1987 graduated (D’Souza 1990, 233). To give minorities a
better life "we have to fix the moral decay caused by the absence of two
parent families to help minorities" (Keyes 1996, 1). Affirmative action is
also insulting to minorities because they may feel they have to be helped out
just to get a job (Steele 1990, 37). A minority that benefits form affirmative
action may feel that they’re inadequate for the job they were hired for.
"Every employee that benefits from affirmative action bears a mark of not
being the best pick, but only the best pick from a limited group" (DeWit
1996, 1). When one thinks about it, they will discover that they would get a
better feeling of satisfaction if they got a job because they were the best
person for the job, not because they were hispanic. Employers may also feel
cheated because they didn’t get as good a worker as they could have gotten (DeWit
1996, 1). Employers that hiring employees solely on the color of their skin are
discriminating (DeWit 1996, 2). Affirmative action is very dangerous to the
american people. If an employee hires an under qualified worker then that worker
puts others at risk if he or she doesn’t have enough experience to know what to
do and what not to do. It’s also financially dangerous. You don’t want to pay
unexperienced people to do work they’re not qualified for. In conclusion,
affirmative action is just wrong. Affirmative action should be abolished, such
an unlawful thing shouldn’t even be considered in the United States. If we allow
affirmative action to proceed, we are just proving to ourselves that we endorse
and accept discrimination in the workplace. There is absolutely no reason why it
should exist. Affirmative action lends a bad name to the United States of
America. Others may view our fine country as a country with people that are so
irresponsible the government has to lower its standard just to get people jobs (DeWit
1996, 2). This indicates that affirmative action should be outlawed because it
has no place in our fine country.