Affirmative action Once upon a time, there were two people interviewing for one position at the same company. The first person, let us call him Jack, attended a prestigious university and academically rigorous university. He had many years of work experience in the field and, in the mind of the employer, had the potential to make a positive impact on the company’s performance. The second person, named Jill, was just starting out in the field and seemed to lack the ambition demonstrated by her opponent. “Who was chosen for the job?” you ask. Well, if the story took place before 1964, the answer would be obvious. However, with the adoption of the social policy known as affirmative action, the answer is relatively unclear. After the United States Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, “it became apparent that certain business traditions, such as seniority status and aptitude tests, prevented total equality in employment”(Hicks 35). President Lyndon B. Johnson, decided something needed to be done to remedy these flaws. On September 24, 1965, he issued Executive Order #11246 at Howard University, which required federal contractors “to take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed . . . without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. (Miller 72)” When Lyndon Banes Johnson signed that order, he enacted one of the most discriminating
pieces of legislature since the Jim Crow Laws. Affirmative action was created in an effort to help minorities leap the discriminative barriers that were ever so present in 1965, when the bill was first enacted. At that time, the country was in the wake of nationwide civil-rights demonstrations, and racial tension was at its peak. White males, who controlled the hiring and firing of employees, occupied most corporate executive and managerial positions. In 1965, the U.S. government believed that these employers discriminated against minorities and believed that there was no better time than the present to bring about change. During ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
pieces of legislature since the Jim Crow Laws. Affirmative action was created in an effort to help minorities leap the discriminative barriers that were ever so present in 1965, when the bill was first enacted. At that time, the country was in the wake of nationwide civil-rights demonstrations, and racial tension was at its peak. White males, who controlled the hiring and firing of employees, occupied most corporate executive and managerial positions. In 1965, the U.S. government believed that these employers discriminated against minorities and believed that there was no better time than the present to bring about change. During this time period, minorities, especially African-Americans, believed that they should receive compensation for the years of discrimination they had endured. The government responded by passing laws to aide them in gaining better employment as a compensation for the previous two hundred years of suffering their race endured at the hands of the white majority. To many, this made sense. Supporters of affirmative action asked, ”Why not let the government help them get better jobs?” After all, the whites were responsible for their suffering.It is true that the whites are responsible for the suppression of the African- American race. However, the individual white male is not. It is just as unfair and oppressive to hold individual white males responsible for past persecution now, as it was to discriminate against African-Americans in the generations before. Why should an honest, hard-working, open minded, white male be suppressed, today? For a past injustice? Affirmative action accepts and condones the idea of an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Do two wrongs make a right? I think our mothers taught us better than that!” (Lancashire 20).Supporters of affirmative action supporters make one large assumption when defending the policy. They assume that minority groups want help. This, however, may not always be the case. My experience as a minority has led me to believe that we have fought to attain equality, not any kind of special treatment. To us, the acceptance of preferential treatment is an admittance of inferiority. Some ask, “Why can’t I become successful on my own? Why do I need laws to help me get a job?” Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." He desired a world without discrimination, without prejudice, and without stereotypes. The lesson that years of discrimination should have taught is that to give anyone preference based on skin color, sex, or religious beliefs is wrong. As Martin Luther King Jr. stated, judgment based on skin color must not exist. All preferential hiring does is keep judgments based on skin color alive. Race and sex should not be issues in today's society, yet preferential hiring continues to make these factors issues by treating minorities as a group rather than as individuals. More importantly, preferential hiring may actually fuel, rather than extinguish, feelings of racial hostility.The lack of presence of minorities in the upper levels of the job market is not a direct effect of discrimination. It is a lack of self-confidence and self-respect that has kept today's blacks and women down. So the logical solution would be to renew their self-respect, and to restore their self-confidence. It seems like too superficial of a solution to simply give blacks and women preference when it comes to hiring. Certainly it would not bolster my self-confidence to know that I received a job over another equally qualified individual, simply due to my skin color or sex. I would feel as if again race and sex were dominating decisions. Wasn't the original goal to eliminate the issue of skin color and sex from all decisions?“The Northern Natural Gas Company of Omaha, Nebraska, was forced by the government to release sixty-five white male workers to make room for minority employees in 1977. Five major Omaha corporations reported that the number of white managers fell 25% in 1969 due to restrictions put on them when affirmative action was adopted” (Hicks 27). Affirmative action is not only unfair for the workingman, but it is extremely discriminatory toward the executive, as well. The average business executive has one goal in mind, and that is to maximize profits. To reach his goal, this executive would naturally hire the most competent man or woman for the job, whether they are black or white or any other race. Why would a businessman intentionally cause his business to lose money by hiring a poorly qualified worker? Most wouldn’t. With this in mind, it seems unnecessary to employ any policy that would cause him to do otherwise. But, that is exactly what affirmative action does. It forces an employer, who needs to meet a quota established by the government, to hire the minority, no matter who is more qualified. Another way that affirmative action reduces from a company’s profits is by forcing it to create jobs for minorities. This practice occurs when a company does not meet its quota with existing employees and has to find places to put minorities. These jobs are often unnecessary, and force a company to pay for workers that they do not need. “Widely supported programs that promote the interests of both lower and middle class Americans that deliver benefits to minorities and whites on the basis of their economic status, and not their race or ethnicity, will do more to reduce minority poverty than the current, narrowly based, poorly supported policies that single out minority groups.” (Miller 86). However, if this, or another remedy is not taken sometime in the near future, and affirmative action continues to separate minority groups, we can be sure to see racial tension reach points that our history has never seen.”
