Affirmative Action :: essays research papers

In its tumultuous, about 40-year history, favourable action has been both praised and pilloried as an answer to racial inequality. The form _or_ system of government was introduced in 1965 by death chair Johnson as a method of redressing discrimination that had persisted in spite of well-bredised even ups laws and constitutional guarantees. "This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights," Johnson asserted. "We seek not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result."Focusing in particular on education and jobs, affirmative action policies required that active measures be taken to ensure that blacks and former(a) minorities enjoyed the same opportunities for promotions, salary increases, career advancement, school admissions, scholarships, and financial aid that had been the nearly exclusive province of discolours. From the outset, affirmative action was envisioned as a temporary remedy that would end o nce there was a " take playing field" for all Americans.By the late 70s, however, flaws in the policy began to show up amid its good intentions. Reverse discrimination became an issue, epitomized by the known Bakke case in 1978. Allan Bakke, a white male, had been rejected two days in a row by a medical school that had accepted less qualified minority applicantsthe school had a separate admissions policy for minorities and reserved 16 out of 100 push throughs for minority students. The unconditional motor lodge outlawed inflexible quota systems in affirmative action programs, which in this case had unfairly discriminated against a white applicant. In the same ruling, however, the Court upheld the legality of affirmative action per se.Fueled by "angry white men," a backlash against affirmative action began to mount. To conservatives, the system was a zero-sum plot of ground that opened the introduction for jobs, promotions, or education to minorities while it shut the door on whites. In a country that prized the values of self-reliance and puff oneself up by ones bootstraps, conservatives resented the idea that some unqualified minorities were getting a free ride on the American system. "Preferential treatment" and "quotas" became expressions of contempt. rase more contentious was the accusation that some minorities enjoyed playing the role of lord victim. Why could some minorities who had also experienced terrible adversity and racismJews and Asians, in particularmanage to make the American way give out for them without government handouts?Liberals countered that "the land of opportunity" was a very different place for the European immigrants who landed on its shores than it was for those who arrived in the chains of slavery.