Affirmative Action
The blog “What’s the issue?!” is dealing with issues in today’s world. There are many controversial tops in the world from health to gun control. The one controversial top I will focus on is affirmative action. Affirmative action is a “program designed to increase minority participation in some institution by taking positive steps to appoint more minority-group members.” Affirmative action has taken in many places like schools, businesses, labor unions and government agencies. President Lyndon Johnson’s speech in 1965 gave forth the motion of affirmative action to achieve equal opportunities in fields such as employment and higher education. These opportunities were meant to break down barriers and level the playing field. This was meant to make sure everyone is given an equal break.
In some cases, this would create a certain percentage of different ethnicities in their facilities. For example, some college are required to have a certain percentage of students to be a different ethnicity. In the recent years since 1965, there has been an increase in different ethnic students who were enrolled in a 2-or-4 year college. In some aspect, affirmative action could be a positive program because ten percent of companies have no women working in their companies.
Affirmative action has not only been a societal problem but has become a legal problem. To some individuals affirmative action is reverse discrimination. This means that there are non-minority people who feel are being overlooked in order to comply their percentage of minorities in their institution. For example, the 2003 court cases of Gutter v Bollinger and Gratz v Bollinger, Gutter believed to recipient of reverse discrimination. Gutter applied to the University of Michigan Law School and was denied. The law school did acknowledge it uses race as a factor in its admission. In both cases it was established a decision of “a certain percentage of race cannot be used to admit minorities to college, but it can be a plus factor.” In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Gutter’s Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
This case would, I suppose, lead to the 2014 court case, Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. In this case the Supreme Court upheld Michigan’s constitutional amendment to ban affirmative action in admissions to state public universities. Michigan being one of the states banning affirmative action in higher education, Florida and California have done the same. As a result, both states have seen a major drop in enrollment of black and Hispanic students in colleges and universities that are most selective.
There are positives and negatives to affirmative action, a positive would be that those who start at a disadvantage can get a boost to succeed. Although some may feel as though they are faced with reverse discrimination, like Gutter. I feel that affirmative action is a great way to promote more diversity and give opportunities to those who may not have such a great starting point as others. Even though I feel this way, I know that it is wrong to have such an unjust manner of giving minorities opportunities. These opportunities should not be given to people based on their gender or race but those who are qualified for the position. 