What are the objectives of affirmative action programs?

What are the objectives (puproses)? As well as the advantages and disadvantages?

What do you think of affirmative action?

Affirmative Action was created to make sure that members of minority groups were getting the same opportunity to have jobs as white males in this country. has it worked? Doesn't seem like it on a larger scale. Perhaps for certain industries. None of us (well, not many of us) were around when women could not get a job in certain industries, or when a black man (or woman) would get laughed out of someplace when applying for work. It's not about "giving a job to a black person when there are more qualified white people" like many affirmative action opposers think. It's about giving a MINORITY who is just as qualified as the non-minority applicant - a chance.

Another reason to have a social discourse without gaining any progress.

Affirmative action programs were designed not necessarily to give traditionally underrepresented groups an equal ground, but to actively make up for decades of discrimination in the past. The programs could be anything from hiring practices, to publicizing job postings, to admitting students to colleges (i.e. the recent University of Michigan cases).

Ideally, if you are looking at two people who have the same qualifications, same experiences, and are generally comparable, the idea of affirmative action programs is to give the person of color the preference. That's not to cut others out of jobs, but to make up for a workplace or a society that is not representative of its demographics.

It's a bit hard to explain without hard numbers, and you can find statistics everywhere that are for and against affirmative action.

The easiest thing to say is that the Supreme Court ruled in the University of Michigan case (where the U of M Law School had an affirmative action based selection process) that race and ethnicity could be only one of many factors deciding a student's consideration for enrollment. It could be included with such other things as legacy status, first generation status, coming from the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, etc., but it could not be the only thing that got them the spot.

So... people aren't getting jobs just because they're black. But people do get jobs sometimes under these programs when it's an attempt to rectify past wrongs and to diversify the office.

It goes back to the founding questions for the programs. "We don't have enough minorities in the classroom, in the job market, in the government. What do we do?" In order for people to be a part of something, they have to see others like themselves there. So, by actively placing people through these programs, it could rebalance the social scales.

Affirmative action programs were never meant to be permanent practices, and the Supreme Court acknowledged that in its Michigan rulings. Many programs that are still affirmative action based are overturned because they are discriminatory against other applicants. That doesn't mean that the program is bad, just that it needs to be retooled.

Hope that helps some.

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7 January 2009 | cameltoepants.com | edit