Opinion On Affirmative Action

Opinion On Affirmative Action

Note: This essay contains opinions NOT shared by the host of this web site. 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 discriminat ion, 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 extreme possibility to end up und er 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 ag ainst (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, mino rities 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 am ong 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, ev entually 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 to day'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 qualit y of life of minorities better. Just because you

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