Affirmative Action

The Constitution of the United States of America states that all people are created equal, and that is how all Americans should be treated. Affirmative action has long since served a good purpose in American society. In today's day and age, affirmative action discriminates against more people than it actually helps. It appears to take advantage of hard-working Americans who are not protected under its umbrella. Affirmative action is the country's attempt to remedy its history of racial discrimination; but in today's society, it seems to incite rather than ease the nation's racial divisions.

Affirmative action is the government's solution for trying to make up for unjust treatment to certain races in the past and also to attempt to create equal opportunities for certain races. It is impossible to give reparations to certain groups solely based on their race for injustices set upon their ancestors in the past without offending the majority of other races. Also, affirmative action was designed to decrease racism in schools and jobs by providing otherwise unavailable access to social networks. Now that this access has been established, it is time for affirmative action to end. (Galston)

There appears to be several large holes in this action. If the government were able to give compensation to races whose ancestors suffered in the past due to the government's actions (e.g. internment of Asians during WWII, and allowing slavery in the 1800s), it cannot merely give these to any member of that race. For example, millions of immigrants migrated to this country after these events occurred. This suggests that the government is giving special treatment to immigrants who were never mistreated by our government. The government should not be giving these special privileges to any person that just steps foot into this country.

This is where members of races who are not protected under affirmative action get taken advantage of. (Grapes 47)

Affirmative action is a nice way in which to say discrimination. It fits the definition exactly in that it gives preference to some individuals and therefore the disfavoring of others. Affirmative action is based entirely on one's race and not one's abilities. It's ironic how the government frowns upon racism but condones a program which gives special privileges to certain races. Two wrongs do not make a right. "It is morally wrong for the government to treat people on the basis of race." (Messereli)

The government is sending mixed messages in its philosophy that racism is a very bad thing. On one hand the government stresses that racism is bad but, at the same time, condones it by allowing affirmative action to take place in this great nation. This poses a great problem in society. People not covered under affirmative action who have made it through an institution of higher education are coming out of college and having trouble finding work suited for their level of knowledge. This is partly due to the fact that businesses have to hire a percentage of minorities, and there are simply just not enough spots open for these unprotected college students. Now these students, who are trying to pay off student loans, are having to settle for lower paying jobs for which they are over qualified. (Keys)

Affirmative action promotes racism. It promotes racism from non-minorities when minorities are given opportunities based solely on their race. This is another example of how affirmative action does the opposite of what it is supposed to do. (Grapes 48)

Under Affirmative Action, colleges and other places of higher education are given a quota of how many minority students must attend their institutions. This is not fair to the colleges as it may place some unreasonable restrictions on recruitment during the admissions process. College admissions representatives must now, in addition to the other qualifying standards, factor in the race of the students applying instead of looking at their academics, personal achievements, and quality of work the student will afford the institution. Additionally, this creates reverse prejudices against the people who are not covered under the umbrella of affirmative action. These quotas are allowing people into schools based predominantly on their race. Oftentimes the minority students that are accepted are less qualified than the people who are not covered under affirmative action. One's race has as much to do with their level of intelligence as their hair or eye color. (Messereli)

The national average of blacks who graduate from college with a degree is very low. Only forty percent of them actually graduate. This means that less than half of all black college students will graduate with a degree. The graduation rate for non-minorities is sixty-one percent. This poses a problem. Just because affirmative action allows more minorities into college it doesn't necessarily mean that they will graduate. Furthermore, it discriminates against non-minority students. Minority students are accepted into these schools where sixty percent of the time they don't graduate. This is taking away the spots of non-minority students who sixty-one percent of the time graduate. This makes very little sense at all. (Edwards)

Affirmative Action can also hurt minorities, however. Many times, since schools need to accept a certain number of minorities, colleges admit students who have lower GPAs and SAT scores than the norm of that school. This often puts the minorities at a disadvantage because they are expected to maintain the high standards of the college, which leads to an increase in the failure rate. For example, in the 1980s at the University of California at Berkeley the number of black students on campus didn't translate into a comparable number of black students graduating. It would be like putting a minor league player into the pros and expect him to excel at batting clean-up. (Grapes 72-73)

In many Ivy league schools the average GPA for non-minority students they were accepting was a 4.0 and a 1300 on the SAT. The average for the minority students they were accepting was below a 3.0 GPA and less than 1000 on the SAT. Standards are supposed to be set to push students to do better. It makes little sense to lower the bar just because of a person's skin color. Further, it lowers the level of accountability for these students. This is another example of how affirmative action hurts the hard-working man or woman. (Grapes 73)

At the University of Colorado, the test scores between black students and white students were very different. The test score differences between black and white