AFFIRMATIVE
ACTION
By Stella L.
Affirmative action is a program that universities and workplaces use in their selection or hiring process. It makes it so that applicants of a minority group are more likely to get accepted than Caucasians or Asians with similar accomplishments and test scores. The government should outlaw affirmative action because there are non-race-based practices that could serve the same purpose and because it could push racial stigmas even further than they already are.
Supporters of affirmative action state that it compensates for past wrongs that have left several ethnic groups in poverty or without the same kinds of resources as whites. They cite the facts that in the United States, 39% of African American children and 33% of Latino children live in poverty and that African Americans and Latinos have a higher chance of attending high-poverty schools than Asian-Americans and Caucasians are. They argue that because these groups were limited in resources, people with vast amounts of potential may be denied because they couldn't realize their abilities where they grew up.
Supporters also claim that by letting more people of minority groups into universities or workplaces, racial stigmas would be lessened. They argue that having more minority groups in esteemed universities or companies would show how they are just as proficient as Caucasians in both education and the workforce.
Instead of looking into somebody's racial background to compensate for lack of resources, people should focus more on checking the applicant's financial circumstances or the resources offered in the area where they grew up. This practice would effectively compensate for an applicant’s lack of resources, as well as provide economic diversity to the school or workplace.
Additionally, instead of conveying that minorities are just as qualified as whites, affirmative action can have the opposite effect. Because these people are helped by affirmative action to be accepted into schools or workplaces, their peers or colleagues may think of them as being weaker than themselves, pushing the stigma that minorities need assistance to be accepted at all.
Even so, it should be acknowledged that having diversity in higher level education would be beneficial to all, as it would expose people to many more cultures and viewpoints than they would encounter otherwise. That alone would be a valuable asset in the business world, where people would regularly have to interact with coworkers, clients, or customers of different backgrounds. However, there are many kinds of diversity not related to race that should also be accounted for, such as economic diversity, religious diversity, etc.In the end, affirmative action should be dissolved because the same things could be accomplished with policies not based on race and because it pushes a racist stigma that could end up being harmful to the minorities it is trying to aid. In place of race-based procedures, methods that look into economic or
financial factors should be implemented. By looking at the statistics, it is easy to see that just by doing this, more minority groups would be accepted as a result and it would ensure economic diversity throughout the school or workplace. Instead of trying to exterminate racism by giving minorities an advantage over Caucasians, society should focus on dissolving racism at the root and teaching people not to think that way in the first place.
Citiations "Affirmative Action Overview." National Conference of State Legislature, 7 Feb. 2014, www.ncsl.org/research/education/affirmative-action-overview.aspx. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018. Civil Rights Act of 1964. National Park Services, www.nps.gov/articles/civil-rights-act.htm. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018. "Ethnic and Racial Minorities & Socioeconomic Status." American Psychological Association, July 2017, www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/minorities.aspx. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018.
25