An Action For Equal Opportunity

Throughout the past few hundred years, discrimination by race, ethnicity, gender, and disability has been a major issue, especially when it comes to employment and educational opportunities. Affirmative action is a policy that has been intended to rid companies and school of this bias injustice that prevents equality amongst different groups of individuals. Simply because someone is a certain nationality or gender should not mean that they have a better chance toward achieving a common goal, such as getting into college or landing that dream position at a business. As stated by the American Association for Affirmative Action, “The purpose of affirmative action is to give our nation a way to finally address the systemic exclusion of individuals of talent on the basis of their gender or race from opportunities to develop, perform, achieve and contribute” (Johnson). Affirmative action can help promote diversity among people, institutions, and corporations and can be a valuable asset that shapes a unique bond between different groups.

It was said in the Declaration of Independence that all individuals are created equally, but do individuals really receive the same opportunities? Our history is proof of the necessity for affirmative action. Whether it was the segregation and mistreatment of African Americans or the disadvantage of being a female fighting for an education and career, the issues of discrimination against certain groups became evident and a change was needed to make situations fair for everyone. Although this issue is not as bad as it was years ago, because drastic changes have been made, such as the equal rights to blacks. Despite this, the conflict still exists. We can read about the unfair treatment towards certain groups in famous pieces of literature, we listen to it on the news, or have it directly affect our lives.

An example of this unequal opportunity can be displayed when my mother decided to create her own business. She had the perfect business plan, better than many financing companies have seen in years. All she need was help getting started, but when lenders heard that the owner of this business was going to be a female, the deal suddenly fell through. Finally, after months and months of searching for a company that would support a female business owner, she decided to find a male business partner. Shortly after an agreement with a close male friend and fellow entrepreneur, she was able to land a deal with a large, well known finance company. Months later her business shot through the roof. After this discussion with my mother about her struggle in the business world, I realized that there are many incidences where a gender is doubted over the other or a specific race is looked down upon; affirmative action is working to help give the same fair treatment to all.

Stated in the article, “Rethinking Affirmative Action,” “Critics say [affirmative action] has evolved into quotas, preferences, and set-asides that amount to reverse discrimination against white males (Jost). In opposition to the idea that affirmative action is eliminating discrimination, others seem to think that it is just creating more. Sometimes affirmative action, at the collegiate level, can focus too much on creating diversity that qualifications, such as GPA, experience, and SAT scores, lose their value. Many colleges used to stick to accepting a certain quota of ethnically diverse students, which left those who possess no significant background at a major disadvantage. This adverse circumstance became so obvious that the Supreme Court realized that these quotas were becoming a major issue. In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that there was to be no more accepting students simply because of their ethnic background. In a specific case that involved the University of Michigan the ruling stated that, “the justices struck down the affirmative action policy for undergraduate admissions, which awards 20 points for blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans on an admissions rating scale” (Split Ruling on Affirmative Action). Although this law was intended to eliminate the acceptance of students simply because of their heritage, colleges are still interested in creating diversity. For instance, my friend and I both applied to the same college. I am white Caucasian but my friend came to the United States from Russia when he was 8 years old. We had the same GPA, took all of the same classes, were both involved in extracurricular activates, and my SAT scores were a small margin higher than his. We got our letters back at the same time, he had