What’s up people! Today I wanted to talk about and give an in depth analysis on a sort of buzz-word that everyone hears often, but don’t really know the ins and outs about. And this thing is Affirmative Action, both in college and the workplace. A lot of people have some big opinions on this topic, without fully understanding both the benefits and drawbacks that it offers. Some people think it provides the ultimate equalizer for admissions into different areas, and some think it is ignoring too many people that try hard but are disadvantaged because of affirmative action. So now I want to try my best to only provide the facts, since it is such a divisive topic. So first off, here is the history:
Affirmative Action is a set of policies or legislation that aims to increase equality in education and employment based on gender, race, sexuality, and nationality. Most policies under this umbrella want to increase diversity, bridge inequality, and correct past harms. The first policies like this were enacted in 1961 by John F. Kennedy through Executive Order 10925, with future policy increases occurring later on. Some examples of this are the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Executive Order 11246 an 11375 by Lyndon B. Johnson. In the past 20 years or so, more and more people have brought up the questionable constitutionality of the acts. In the Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, it held up in court that public institutions can factor race into college admissions. States like California, Michigan, and Washington have banned the use of affirmative action, and instead want to focus on socio-economic status when adjusting college admissions. Let me emphasize that not only were these actions important, but they were absolutely vital for the inclusion of people from all walks of life to get a fair shot. Without these various orders and bills being passed, minorities might be even further behind then many are today. However, today these policies may create more division in this country than they are worth, especially in colleges. One of the biggest indicators for success later in life is having a college degree, so the fact that college admissions may not be currently handled correctly is a huge problem in present day America.
Well how does it work in college admissions? That is a very loaded question to answer. Well, it does indeed do what it intends, and allows many more minorities to get into college programs that otherwise likely would have been turned away. It corrects for Black and Hispanic people to be more likely to make it into a competitive programs, while making it marginally less likely for White and Asian people to get in. In most colleges, they don’t turn away many people and their acceptance rate is very high, so there are not many people Affirmative Action can hurt. However, in the more prestigious organizations, they use it way more often in their admissions. This lets certain people get in, but often leaves the possibility that someone just as deserving of the spot can not get into their dream college. Take ACT results for example, Black and Hispanic people receive “boosts” to their scores while White people’s remain the same and Asian’s scores are artificially lowered in this current system. Some people’s admissions rates are drastically increased while others chances go down. With the rising hate crimes occurring against Asian Americans, the fact that most of the best colleges in the country actively treat Asian applicants differently than others is an even worse look than it normally is. There have already been numerous lawsuits that have been filed against these colleges on the behalf of Asian Americans, with most not having concluded yet. These current policies end up helping people that don’t need the help as much more often than not. The largest beneficiaries of current policy are upper-middle class Black Americans, not poor minorities. As it should be to no one’s surprise, families that have more money can spend that money on their child’s education, therefore giving their kid a head start in life and leading to a better chance at success. The reason for this being that these people already had the resources to succeed at the high school level and have a greater chance of getting higher test scores because of their socio-economic status, as well as getting a boost from Affirmative Action. This not only gives a boost to people that don’t need the artificial help as much as others, but leaves out poorer Americans that would really need the help to get ahead, regardless of race. This does not even factor Legacy students, who have a much higher chance of being admitted simply because a relative has already gone to the school. Not only is this a terrible concept to begin with, it helps those who already have had the means and resources to previously succeed at a university instead of a family that could be sending their first person to college. Affirmative action today is treated more as reparations for slavery than actually helping people that desperately need it to get ahead in the broken system we currently live in. As some states have already suggested, if we instead focused on adjusting for a families income when talking about college admissions, it would be way more likely to help those that could actually need it. This would still mostly benefit minorities that have been historically disenfranchised, but actually impact those that are the furthest behind the most. While admissions focusing on socio-economic status is currently lacking, at least programs like FAFSA account for expenses for disadvantaged people once they get into school. I personally think that Affirmative Action was absolutely essential to the proper inclusion of all different types of people, but there are better ways of tackling the problem of inclusion in our current society when it comes to college admissions.
Title IX is another divisive piece of legislation related to Affirmative Action, that directly relates to trying to end gender discrimination in colleges. Title IX is part of the Education Amendments of 1972, which helped end sexual harassment in education and the workplace. Another part of this act was promoting more women to join athletics, so public colleges need to have equal amounts of male and female athletes and programs. While this has been super effective at getting more women involved in their school’s athletics, it has resulted in a multitude of negative side effects for males. Title IX has resulted in hundreds of colleges cutting several of the men’s sports programs, most commonly cross country, track, golf, and tennis. Colleges only have so much money to go around, so they want to keep the male sports that bring in the most revenue, which are football and basketball at most colleges. These sports also have the largest rosters, so many of the spots that a college gets to use for male athletes only go towards ones that bring in money for the school. This results in many males getting turned away from the possibility of being able to compete for their school at the next level, which would happen less often if not for the male athletes cap caused by Title IX. There has to be a way to still promote women joining more sports at their respective school, while not punishing men for also enjoying athletic activity.
I have dragged Affirmative Action for long enough, its time to focus on the major good that it has caused in the workplace. Contrary to what some think, it does not cause quotas or throw out the use of merit-based hiring. It has helped both women and minorities not only get hired, but it has helped them be treated more fairly than they had ever been. More than half of the United States work force now consists of women, immigrants, and minorities. Affirmative Action causes business not to hire people based on the total population, but in proportional numbers to the pool of qualified candidates. While there is still the huge problem with lack of women and minorities in leadership roles, this has been moving in the right direction since the programs have been introduced. This is one area that I would for sure push back on people that disagree with Affirmative Action, because it is becoming increasingly important that there is no lack of diversity in the workplace because it can only serve to benefit everyone involved. While every piece of the law has an issue, it is not worth getting rid of Affirmative Action in the workplace.
So, is Affirmative Action racist and/or classist? Yes, and no, depending on what area of life we are talking about. In college, I think that it causes more harm than good. While at many schools their acceptance rate is so high that it often doesn’t come into play, at the highest level schools it hurts too many people that still deserve to get in. And with the inclusion of Title IX, I think policies like this often overstep their bounds and create a bridge where there doesn’t have to be one. However, Affirmative Action has been beneficial in the workplace since its inception, and will only serve to improve workplace diversity in the United States. Affirmative Action in all areas has increasingly been pushed back against by the public, so it will be very interesting to see what will be done with it in the coming years. So anyways, thanks for reading my article today and I hope you can take away something from it that you didn’t think about before. Not everyone will agree with my point of view, but that is okay because we all get our chance to share our perspective on what effects all of our lives.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action
https://blog.collegevine.com/sibling-legacy-college-admissions/