Note: This essay contains opinions of a College freshman who wrote this paper for English 101 and NOT necessarily the opinions of this web site.
Affirmative action is wrong and will not help solve the problems minorities face. The reason it is wrong is because it's discrimination. It has no place in today's society in today's society because it does more bad than good. In addition to that most people don't enjoy the presence of affirmative action. Also, it appears that affirmative action can actually be detrimental to employees health.
First of all, affirmative action is discrimination, there is no hiding it. When an employer hires anyone because he or she is a minority, even if someone else if more qualified to do the job, it is discrimination. Just because it is reverse discriminat ion, when whites are discriminated against and minorities are being discriminated for, doesn't make it right. Affirmative action legalizes discrimination (Steele 1990, 39). "I thought discrimination was illegal in this country (Buchanan 1995, 1)." Also , if this discrimination continues racism in the United States
may become worse. Imagine what you would feel like if you couldn't get a job just because you are a white man and not a hispanic man. The racism will become worse because of it, and that is the very thing it is trying to prevent. It is possible that because of affirmative action, racism will grow and continue to grow until we history repeats itself and we end up living under Jim Crow laws again. That is an extreme possibility to end up und er Jim Crow laws again, but it is a definite possibility to end up somewhere close to Jim Crow laws again.
In addition to that, people say affirmative action is ok because it cures past discrimination (Keyes 1996, 1). Discrimination wasn't ok when blacks were the ones getting the short end of the stick. Therefore it's not ok when whites are discriminated ag ainst (DeWit 1996, 1). Two wrongs don't make a right. Therefore, affirmative action doesn't make discrimination ok just because it's against blacks instead of whites.
Affirmative action in college is the most discriminating thing this country has ever seen since the Jim Crow laws many years ago (Buchanan 1995, 1). At ivy league colleges the median GPA of applicants is close to 4.0 and S.A.T.'s are close to 1300, mino rities are let in with GPA's less than 3.0 and S.A.T.'s less than 1000 (D'Souza 1990, 231).
The only way for colleges to achieve ethnic proportionalism is to downplay or abandon merit criteria and to accept students from typically under represented groups, such as blacks, hispanics, and american indians, over better qualified students from am ong whites and asian americans (D'Souza 1990, 231).
Obviously, affirmative action is allowing undereducated citizens to get into college when the people that are qualified aren't getting accepted when they should. When we passed the equal opportunities law, it didn't mean treat different races differently , it means we should treat all people as equals, affirmative action doesn't treat everyone as equals (Hacker 1990, 229). If we lower acceptance standards for minorities, we should lower standards for everyone. Since nobody would do that we should raise the standard for minorities.
In addition, if affirmative action gets its way, it will do more harm than good. Affirmative action will only work short term because if you hire a minority that's under qualified they'll eventually get fired. Also, you can only hire so many people, ev entually you'll get too much under qualified people working for you and you'll eventually have to abandon affirmative action all together. Also, affirmative action doesn't work because it doesn't change anything (Keyes 1996, 1). If there is racism in to day's modern age, then racism will always be present and affirmative action won't work. In addition if we need to discriminate against white people to give minorities jobs now, it won't change. Giving someone a job won't do any good in making the qualit y of life of minorities better. Just because you enroll more minorities in your college, doesn't mean you're making the playing field even. When someone isn't good enough to get into a certain college, they're out of their league when they get in. Only 15% of black and 22% of hispanic affirmative action students accepted to Berkeley in 1987 graduated (D'Souza 1990, 233). To give minorities a better life "we have to fix the moral decay caused by the absence of two parent families to help minorities" (K eyes 1996, 1).
Affirmative action is also insulting to minorities because they may feel they have to be helped out just to get a job (Steele 1990, 37). A minority that benefits form affirmative action may feel that they're inadequate for the job they were hired for. "Every employee that benefits from affirmative action bears a mark of not being the best pick, but only the best pick from a limited group" (DeWit 1996, 1). When one thinks about it, they will discover that they would get a better feeling of satisfacti on if they got a job because they were the best person for the job, not because they were hispanic. Employers may also feel cheated because they didn't get as good a worker as they could have gotten (DeWit 1996, 1). Employers that hiring employees solel y on the color of their skin are discriminating (DeWit 1996, 2).
Affirmative action is very dangerous to the american people. If an employee hires an under qualified worker then that worker puts others at risk if he or she doesn't have enough experience to know what to do and what not to do. It's also financially da ngerous. You don't want to pay unexperienced people to do work they're not qualified for.
In conclusion, affirmative action is just wrong. Affirmative action should be abolished, such an unlawful thing shouldn't even be considered in the United States. If we allow affirmative action to proceed, we are just proving to ourselves that we endor se and accept discrimination in the workplace. There is absolutely no reason why it should exist. Affirmative action lends a bad name to the United States of America. Others may view our fine country as a country with people that are so irresponsible the government has to lower its standard just to get people jobs (DeWit 1996, 2). This indicates that affirmative action should be outlawed because it has no place in our fine country.
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