3 types of affirmative action
Affirmative Action Throughout American History
According to Britannica, affirmative action is, “an active effort to improve employment or educational opportunities for members of minority groups and for women,” (Britannica, ). This term was first used in a governmental setting by Kennedy’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity in an executive order that discussed requirements to avoid discrimination.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson came into office, he continued to implement civil rights policies, involving the concept of affirmative action From this point on, the term affirmative action was used in regard to employment discrimination, mainly race, ethnicity, and religion, later followed by gender in , (National Archives, n.d.). During the s and s, affirmative action continued to expand and be implemented in all areas of everyday life, including employment, federal agencies, and educational institutions, (Britannica, ).
However, for many, the first thing that comes to mind when hearing the phrase “affirmative action” is higher education, specifically college acceptance.
The system was implemented in prestigious universities as a means of combatting racial discrimination and injustice. In most cases, universities would have a quota in place, meaning they had to admit a certain number of minority students each admissions cycle to create a more diverse environment. The use of affirmative action proved to be very successful and resulted in a more accepting and united university.
As a result, many other institutions followed suit and adopted a similar system and quota.
Biography examples for students: They have expanded to address gender, sexual orientation , and various disabilities. In the U. However, many legal experts agreed that the underlying objective of the complaint was to challenge the existing precedent allowing affirmative action in college admissions. Email Updates.
Despite the success of these programs, many people who were not part of a minority group felt as though they were being discriminated against. As a result, the system of affirmative action became a very controversial topic that has been heavily debated.
Naturally, with such impactful policies, citizens will bring cases up to the Supreme Court to challenge the law.
Affirmative action laws were first challenged in the Supreme Court in with the case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, (Oyez, n.d.). This case involved a middle-aged white man who was denied from the University of California Medical School twice, which he believed was due to the sixteen out of one hundred spaces in each class that were reserved for minority students.
Affirmative action biography examples for college This policy ensured that decisions were not based solely on race, but rather took into account a broad range of factors contributing to diversity. Policies were adopted to help those with different racial backgrounds and national origins. This unspoken practice persisted for decades, leading to a lack of Jewish representation on campus, and by , Jewish students in the freshman class accounted only for 8. The primary objective of these measures was to eliminate employment discrimination based on race and later included gender as well.Bakke was very upset because his academic credentials were higher compared to the minority students who were accepted into the school. The Court was quite split on their decision, with four justices determining this racial quota system was unconstitutional and unfair. However, four other justices determined this racial quota to be constitutional and that race should be considered in college admissions.
The final judge ruled that Bakke should receive a spot at the University of California Medical School. Similar cases continued to be brought up to the Supreme Court and great controversy began to surround affirmative action.
Affirmative action biography examples for students Bollinger Supreme Court Restricts Use of Affirmative Action Sources Affirmative action is the name given to efforts at encouraging the participation of women and minorities in education, the workforce, the military and other arenas. List of Partners vendors. California, Texas, and Florida have instituted, in place of Affirmative Action, plans that guarantee the top percentage of high school graduates admission to a state University. This made California the first state to ban race-conscious college admissions.This eventually led to the most impactful Supreme Court decision that ruled against the affirmative action system at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
These recent challenges to the system of affirmative action were centered around White and, mainly, Asian American students who felt as though they were being discriminated against in the college admissions process.
Many of these students noticed that they were getting rejected by prestigious institutions, but had higher test scores and GPAs than minority students who were accepted. One of the universities at the forefront of this controversy was Harvard University, which eventually published data about their previous admissions to show that there was no discrimination taking place.
Short biography examples In addition to meeting admission requirements, Biden proposed the consideration of key factors such as financial means, first-generation college status, place of upbringing and general hardships, including experiences of racial discrimination. Ability is stretched and stunted by the family that you live with, and the neighborhood you live in — by the school you go to and the poverty or richness of your surroundings. Bollinger , this case questioned whether the state of Michigan violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by giving the decision on whether to ban discrimination based on race and sex in admissions to state universities. Roberts wrote for the majority.The data showed that “the discrepancy between admitted Asian American and white students’ academic credentials had to do with other credentials that white students had more often than Asian Americans: legacy status, athletic recruitment, intention to major in the humanities, and more. In other words, academics are not the only criteria for admission to Harvard, and white applicants had more of the non-academic credentials,” (Warikoo, n.d.).
In the Supreme Court ruling on the cases involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Court determined that the presence of affirmative action in college admissions is unconstitutional. This ruling heavily impacted the college admissions process at all institutions in America, since they had been using these systems of admissions for so long and the rule was put into place immediately.
Universities are now required to have a “race-neutral” admissions system, to stray away from all affirmative action,” (Anti Racism Commitment Coalition, ).
However, on the other side of this argument, institutions that did not have an affirmative action system or did not take the race of an applicant into account, many believe there were signs of racial discrimination.
Those who recognize this issue believe that not taking race into account in the college admissions process, creates inequality on college campuses and does not give minority students are fair chance. In the United States poverty rate showed that, “ percent of Black people living in the United States were living below the poverty line, compared to percent of white people,” (Statista, ).
Although many people have a black-and-white perspective on the college admissions process, meaning if one applicant has a higher GPA or more internships than another applicant, naturally the first applicant should get admitted. However, those with this mindset fail to consider the other factors that impact someone’s education. For example, those who can afford an SAT tutor or college admissions coach will naturally have a higher score or more sophisticated application.
For many people in America, these resources are not available to them. Many students can not afford tutors or standardized test lessons, or they must work every day after school to help support their families so they cannot get an internship. These factors must be taken into consideration when making an admissions decision. These are the main reasons that affirmative action was put into place, to try and give underprivileged students a fair chance of receiving a good education.
Inequality is present in all aspects of society, so having a system in place that recognizes these injustices is an attempt to even out such discrimination.
The statistics collected from institutions around the country demonstrate the overly positive impacts of affirmative action, even after just ten years in place.
Affirmative action biography examples Measure advertising performance. The court ruled, however, that defining specific quotas was not permissible. Table of Contents Expand. Measure content performance.For example, “between and , the total number of American Black students enrolled in colleges and universities leaped from , to an encouraging 1,, as a direct result of affirmative action admissions policies,” (Anti Racism Commitment Coalition, ). This highlights that even right after its implementation, affirmative action was very impactful in establishing an equal higher education system, so it is extremely upsetting and unfortunate the the Supreme Court made such a drastic decision.
#:~:text=U.S.%20poverty%20rate%20in%20the%20United%20States%%2C%20by%20race%20and%20ethnicity&text=In%%2C%%20percent%20of,and%20ethnicities%20was%%20percent.