Affirmative Action Pros and Cons with provisions.ppt

Affirmative
Action Pros and
Cons

• In the United States, the Civil Rights
Movement of the 1950s and 1960s
secured citizenship rights for blacks.
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed
segregation in public facilities and racial
discrimination in employment and
education.
Affirmative action: origins

• In public education, accommodations,
employment, and investment
opportunities, overt discrimination
against individuals on the basis of race,
sex, religion, or ethnicity has been
legally prohibited.

• However, legal prohibition against racial
and sexual discrimination was not
sufficient to erase the effects of past
discrimination.
• Racist and sexist stereotypes and
practices continued to exist to the
disadvantage of women and minorities.

• To remedy the lingering effect of racial
and sexual discrimination, it was
proposed that women and minorities
should be provided access to positions
they otherwise would be unlikely to get
because of the continuing effect of
historical oppression.

• In a speech delivered at Howard
University in June 1965, President
Lyndon Johnson asserted that black
poverty was different, that equal
opportunity alone could not cure it, and
that active steps had to be taken to deal
with the problem.

• “…You do not take a person who, for
years, has been hobbled by chains and
liberate him, bring him up to the
starting line of a race and then say, ‘you
are free to compete with all the others,’
and still justly believe that you have
been completely fair…”

• “…We seek not just legal equity but
human ability, not just equality as a
right and a theory but equality as a fact
and equality as a result...To this end
equal opportunity is essential, but not
enough, not enough.”

• Affirmative action refers to policies that
take factors including race, color,
religion, gender, sexual orientation or
national origin into consideration in
order to benefit an underrepresented
group, usually as a means to counter
the effects of a history of discrimination.

• Focusing in particular on education and
jobs, affirmative action encompasses a
variety of programs or policies such as
outreach and recruitment efforts or the
establishment of guidelines for the
selection of applicants from
underrepresented groups.

• Affirmative action policies required that
active measures be taken to ensure that
blacks and other minorities would enjoy
the same opportunities for promotions,
salary increases, career advancement,
school admissions, scholarships, and
financial aid that had been the nearly
exclusive province of whites.

• From the outset, affirmative action was
envisioned as a temporary remedy that
would end once there was a ‘level
playing field’ for all Americans.

• The earliest forms of affirmative action
programs were based on outreach and
recruitment efforts. These programs
typically involve enlarging the pool of
applicants.

• At first, the main objective of affirmative
action was the removal of all forms of
discrimination and the achievement of
equality.
• However, instead of continuing to insist
on the equality of all Americans, calls
began to be made for preferences or
differential treatment.

• The federal agencies set up in the 1960s
to deal with employment discrimination
moved quickly and aggressively beyond
simply trying to root out discrimination
to promoting proportional
representation of target groups.

• In the late 1960s, Congress, the presidency
and the Supreme Court all pushed
employers to adopt statistical goals in the
hiring and promotion of African Americans
and certain other minorities.
• Soon afterwards, women were also
included as one of the target groups of
affirmative action programs.

• Courts issued order to companies to
implement affirmative action programs to
combat the effects of past discrimination.
• Companies bidding for federal contracts, in
particular, were required to set numerical
targets for the hiring of racial minorities, as
well as timetables for their achievement.

• Private businesses and educational
institutions adopted similar policies,
often because they feared expensive
lawsuits would be brought against
them if they did not.

• Where underrepresentation of minorities
or women was evident, companies and
educational institutions had to develop
goals and timetables to improve in each
area of underrepresentation.
• In some instances, preferential
treatment for minorities and women
might take the form of a quota system.

• Quotas can be understood as a
recruitment policy of representing
minorities and women in an
organization in direct proportion to
their members in society or in the
community at large.

• Quotas were mandated requiring
companies to hire a certain percentage of
their workers from previously excluded or
underrepresented minorities.
• Similarly, universities and other
educational institutions might have to set
aside a fixed number of places for certain
minority group members.

• The introduction of a quota system
meant that some well qualified people
were excluded from job openings set
aside for minorities.
• In education, it meant admitting people
with lesser overall scores or points in
the assessment system.

• In short, preferential affirmative action
involved selecting and recruiting
minorities and women who appeared to
be less well qualified by the usual criteria
than some white male applicants.
• As a result, racial matters became
contentious when the issue was
preferential, rather than equal, treatment.

• Affirmative action policies were originally
intended as remedies for centuries of
discrimination and disadvantage.
• However, when they took the form of
preferences of ethnic minorities over
white Americans and of statistical goals
and quotas, opposition developed quickly.

• Numerous people complained that they
had faced discrimination because of
being white and/or male, and so they
brought lawsuits challenging the
affirmative action policies of schools
and employers.

• The Supreme Court eventually outlawed
inflexible quota systems in affirmative
action programs after a series of
lawsuits that indict such programs for
producing ‘reverse discrimination’.

• The negative reaction is understandable
because affirmative action, regardless
of its specific form, is primarily a policy
intended to promote the redistribution
of opportunity. Some people benefit
directly, while others may not be as well
off as they would have otherwise been.

• All in all, affirmative action is a
controversial and divisive issue because
people disagree on [1] whether
affirmative action is necessary or
desirable, [2] whether its advantages
outweigh its drawbacks, and [3] what
specific types of efforts should be
implemented.

Affirmative action: pros
• Backward-looking arguments defend
affirmative action on the ground that it
is compensation for the harmful effects
of past injustice.
• Forward-looking arguments defend
affirmative action on the ground that it
has good consequences.

• Backward-looking arguments often draw
attention to the lingering effects of past
discrimination.
• Forward-looking arguments, on the other
hand, highlights the effectiveness of
affirmative action in breaking the vicious
circle of discrimination, establishing role
models and promoting diversity.

• Past discrimination has put African
Americans at a continuing disadvantage.
Unless something is done, they will never
be able to compete on an equal basis.
• Given the history of oppression against
blacks, anti-discrimination laws alone
cannot secure equal opportunity.

• Anti-discrimination laws cannot eradicate
the effects of several hundred years of
racism. Nor do such laws address the
present-day effects of past discrimination.
• Only affirmative action can address the
residual effects of past injustice and
advance the situation of the victims of
oppression.

• Lingering prejudice makes life harder
for many black job applicants. It has
repeatedly been shown that employers
who are offered two otherwise identical
résumés prefer one that carries a
typically white name to one with a
typically black name.

• A study conducted at the University of
Chicago in 2003 found that people with
‘black-sounding’ names such as Lakisha
and Jamal are 50 percent less likely to
be interviewed for a job compared to
people with ‘white-sounding’ names
such as Emily or Greg.

• Proponents of affirmative action believe
that racism is profoundly entrenched in
American beliefs, practices and attitudes.
• Thus, government mandated preferential
treatment is necessary for a limited period
of time in order to ‘level the playing field’.

• Genuine equality of opportunity cannot
be achieved by the application of the
same rules and standards to all, but
requires specific interventions.
• The promotion of racial equality
necessitates comprehensive government
action.

• The long-term goal of affirmative action
is to create a color-blind society; but in
the short run, programs must be put in
place that temporarily give preferences
to African Americans.

• Counterargument: Considerations of
‘compensatory justice’, however, do not
provide a good justification for
preferential affirmative action for women.
• Being female is not passed on from
generation to generation, nor do women
live in segregated communities. They
share the same social class with their
fathers and husbands.

• To improve the social status of women,
simple non-discrimination would be
enough.
• For example, women should receive
equal pay for equal work, but it does not
follow that they should be given
preferences over better-qualified men.

• Past and present discrimination leads to
low family income. Low family income
leads to poorer education for children,
which leads to lower-paying jobs, which
lead to low family income, and so on.
• Affirmative action can help to break this
vicious circle of disadvantage.

• Proponents of affirmative action assert
that it is the government’s responsibility
to ensure a basic quality of life for all its
citizens by implementing policies aimed
at overcoming situations that adversely
affect their well being.

• Affirmative action policies require the
assignment of blacks and women to
positions that stereotyping excludes
them from.
• This may break the stereotypes and
thereby make opportunities more equal
for younger blacks and women.

• For example, an otherwise bright girl
may decide not to pursue a career in
medicine if she is unable to associate
womanhood with a medical career
because she is not exposed to female
physicians.

• The increase in the numbers of female
medical students and physicians as a
result of gender-based affirmative
action will serve to undermine the
stereotype that women cannot be
physicians.

• Similarly, to counter the effects of social
stereotypes on blacks, what is needed is
a stable, black middle-class, a
professional class, that could provide
the role model for young blacks.

• Many proponents of affirmative action
also believe that the United States is a
multiracial society and as such will
benefit from mutual respect and
harmony by bringing diverse
backgrounds to employment and
educational institutions.

• Diversity within organizations, they
argue, is likely to bring desirable
outcomes such as greater productivity.
• Microsoft entrepreneur Bill Gates is a
strong supporter of affirmative action
because he thinks that it better enables
corporations to deal with an increasingly
complex and diverse market.

• If a corporation either discriminates or fails to
look at the full range of qualified persons in
the market, it will eventually wind up with a
larger percentage of second-best employees.
• Does it imply that corporations should take
qualifications and equal opportunity more
seriously rather than give preferences to less
qualified applicants in hiring?

• If people in black communities do not
get adequate medical care because not
enough doctors choose to practice
there, would it be reasonable for
medical schools to lower admission
requirements for blacks simply because
they are more likely to practice in black
communities after they graduate?

Affirmative action: cons
• Affirmative action is a subject of
controversy. Some policies adopted as
affirmative action, such as racial quotas
or gender quotas for college admission,
have been criticized as a form of
reverse discrimination, and as such
have been ruled unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court.

• Affirmative action policies have been
perceived as unjust, unfair, racially divisive,
and destructive of the self-respect and self-
esteem of the beneficiaries.
• Opinion polls showed that programs that
called for the application of quotas and
racial preferences were highly unpopular.

• Opponents argue that [1] affirmative
action programs are at odds with
traditional American values such as
freedom and merit-based equal
opportunity, [2] the harm done by these
programs outweighs the good, and [3]
there are better ways to achieve the goods
the programs are supposed to achieve.

• Proponents of affirmative action programs
suggest that preferential treatment is
necessary to promote equal opportunity.
• Opponents, on the other hand, argue that
giving preferences to minorities and
women actually contradicts the very idea
of equal opportunity.

• The ideal of equal opportunity merely
requires that persons be treated in
employment or admissions decisions
without regard to their race or sex, but
not necessarily with the goal of
attaining a certain proportional
representation.

• Affirmative action aims at equality of
result (equality of outcome) rather than
equality of opportunity.
• Thus, there is a conflict between the
equal opportunity ideal and the results-
oriented focus of affirmative action.

• Americans, in general, believe that success
should be based on merit and hard work,
not birthright or race.
• They believe that people are not being
treated with equal respect when preferences
or special advantages are granted to some
based solely on the fact that they happen to
belong to certain racial or gender groups.

• Race-based or gender-based affirmative
action contradicts the very idea of
merit-based equal opportunity.
• Preferential affirmative action permits
whole sections of society to avoid
competition and unjustly deny qualified
people the opportunity they deserve.

• From the standpoint of equal opportunity,
race and sex are irrelevant characteristics.
• Just as it was wrong in the past to use
these characteristics to deny people equal
chances, so it is also wrong in the present
to give preferences to people on the basis
of these characteristics.

• Individuals should be evaluated and
recruited on the based of their personal
merit.
• No preferences should be given on the
basis of group identity or other
characteristics unrelated to an individual’s
qualifications.

• The principle of equal opportunity or non-
discrimination is violated every time a less-
qualified African American or woman is
hired over a more qualified white man.
• All people should be appointed on the basis
of fair competition, and not because they
belong to one group or another.

• We want the best surgeons to perform
vital surgery, the best engineers to
design bridges, and the best judges to
decide legal cases.
• Only by recognizing and rewarding
merit can we promote efficiency and
welfare.

• Opponents of affirmative action argue
that guaranteeing minorities
admissions or employment even when
they appear to be less qualified than
whites amounts to ‘reverse
discrimination’.

• American philosopher Sidney Hook
declared: “We are inconsistent as well
as insincere if, in attempts to rectify the
arbitrary and invidious discrimination of
the past, we practice arbitrary and
invidious discrimination in the present.”

• Opponents of affirmative action insist that
discriminatory practices are inherently
unjust, even when use as means for a just
goal.
• Preferences, goals, timetables, and quotas
violate our moral sense of justice because
they create new victims of discrimination.

• Actual justice, they argue, does not
penalize success nor reward failure, but
holds all persons to the same standards
regardless of their race, ethnic origin,
financial condition, religion or beliefs.

• The principle of compensatory justice
required that those and only those
wronged should be compensated, and
those and only those responsible for
the wrong should be made to pay.
• Is it fair to penalize the children of a
given race for wrongs perpetrated by
their remote ancestors?

• Some programs of preferential affirmative
action have actually compensated people
regardless of whether they have been
harmed by past discriminatory practices.
• People disadvantaged by past injustice are
often unable to benefit at all from these
programs.

• Affirmative action often benefits already
privileged members of minority groups.
• For example, it is not the blacks from inner-
city ghettoes who are selected for the
prestigious universities but the children of
the affluent black middle class who have
never, or only very rarely, been the victims
of racism.

• Affirmative action also runs counter to
the American values of freedom and
choice.
• Corporations should be allowed to
employ workers best suited to the job,
and universities should be able to admit
the best and brightest students.

• The government’s role is to enforce the
rule of law, rather than using its
coercive authority to influence the
decisions and behavior of individuals
and organizations.

• Affirmative action incurs a high cost for
businesses. To enforce such programs,
businesses must hire people to collect
data, process forms, deal with
government agencies, and handle legal
procedures. The additional time, energy
and expense could have been channeled
into more productive directions.

• Another problem with affirmative action
is that it causes unprepared or
unqualified applicants to be accepted in
highly demanding educational
institutions or jobs which results in
eventual failure.

• ‘Mismatching’ is the term given to the
negative effect that affirmative action
has when it places students into a
college that is too difficult for them.
• By admitting students into a college
that is too difficult for them, affirmative
action increases the students’ chance of
dropping out.

• One hidden cost of racial preferences is the
drop-out rate of black students, which is
much higher than that of white students.
• A recent study found that 43 percent of the
black students admitted to law school on
the basis of race either dropped out or fail
to pass a bar exam.

• Another reason why affirmative action is
undesirable is that it unfairly stigmatizes
minorities and women who benefit from its
operation.
• Affirmative action’s beneficiaries are
despised because they are often seen as
second rate, unqualified or unjustly
selected.

• Affirmative action is counterproductive
because it devalues the accomplishments
of the people it is intended to help.
• Their achievement is often seen as
undeserved or attributed to their minority
status rather than their merit or
qualifications.

• Affirmative action policies have been
criticized for treating the effects of
inequality rather than tackling its causes.
• Blacks disproportionately failed to succeed
for reasons other than discrimination, i.e.
problems such as illegitimacy, crime,
substance abuse that cannot be addressed
through affirmative action alone.

• Improving education and employment
opportunities for minorities may be a
desirable goal, but there are many ways
to achieve it, and affirmative action may
not be the best approach.
• Programs such as income support and
job training are more effective and less
controversial than racial preferences.

• If the government’s goal is to compensate
black people for past injustice, a more
sensible approach is to invest resources in
black community development, health
care, and education.
• Policies that involve preferential
treatment do not really fix the problem.

• Some suggest that the government should
reduce poverty and help the poor to
maintain a minimum standard of living.
• They have proposed to substitute a needs-
based policy for the present race- and
gender-based one. Such an approach
should target the poor and needy rather
than individuals of a particular race or
gender.

• Suppose you are a teacher and some
students of yours fall behind because of
poor language skills. Would you lower
the standards for these students so that
they can pass the exams, or would you
tell them to take extra language lessons
so that they are better equipped to
compete with other students?

Racial preferences
• Supporters of affirmative action and
racial preferences could claim that
these represented a form of
compensation for the injustice blacks or
their ancestors had suffered in the eras
of slavery and segregation.

Racial preferences
• No such argument can be made for
Hispanics. The majority of them were
born abroad, mostly in Mexico, and do
not speak fluent English.
• What is the justification for granting
preferences to Hispanics? How about
recent immigrants from other countries
such as Poland or Iran?

Racial preferences
• Other minorities and immigrants groups
have boasted of success despite the
racism directed against them.
• Jewish, Chinese, Irish Americans, for
example, have all been the victims of
discrimination and prejudice in
American history.

Racial preferences
• With the passage of time, however, these
groups have been able to move into the
mainstream of American economic, social
and political life.
• The implication is that racism cannot
prevent people from succeeding as long as
they have talent and are determined to
succeed.

Racial preferences
• In theory, the purpose of racial
preferences is to remedy past injustice
and promote diversity; but in practice, it
often leads to an increase of tensions
between minority groups regarding
who is the greater victim and more
deserving of preferential treatment.

Racial preferences
• Some critics charge that the problem
with affirmative action and racial
preferences is that it insidiously
reinforces the stereotype that blacks
and Hispanics cannot compete on the
same terms as whites and Asians.

Racial preferences
• Despite the history of harsh anti-Asian
discrimination in the United States,
Asian students do far better than blacks
and Hispanics and better on average
than white Americans.

Racial preferences
• Today, Asian Americans are the largest
group at California’s most prestigious
universities and out-perform and out-
earn whites.
• If the Asians can make it, why not the
other minorities?

Racial preferences
• Why could Asians earn their success
without government assistance or
intervention? Why is there such a large
achievement gap between blacks and
Asians, even when the Asians come
from the same or lower socio-economic
strata than the blacks?

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