Affirmative Action in College Admissions

Paper Summary:

In the paper, the author discusses the relevance of affirmative action in college admissions, first introduced by President Johnson in 1965. The author says that affirmative action is a complex idea because it helps those who have been discriminated against but also creates the same problem that it is trying to solve by saying that race is a factor. The author then discusses why diversity is important in college, the positive and negative effects of affirmative action on dominant culture and the positive and negative effects on minorities. The author continues and discusses a number of issues arising from affirmative action before reaching a final conclusion. The author reaches the conclusion that whilst affirmative action is problematical, overall it has a beneficial impact on the ability of minority groups to obtain a higher education.

From the Paper:

"I believe that affirmative action has brought social justice to minorities and helped root out discrimination which was one of the most important things that our country needed to fight against, but the fight for equal admissions to colleges should help raise the opportunities of minorities while not disparaging dominant culture or creating unfairness for them. I consider the college admission standards to be a scale, and years ago that scale was tilted towards dominant culture which gave them more opportunities than minorities had. Affirmative action is what helped to level the scale and I believe that it did that and is now raising the scale towards the minority side. Often when I debate this with people I hear the same thing "Well now you know how they felt years ago", or "It's compensating for past discrimination and slavery." Now I agree that slavery was perhaps one of the most horrible things in American history but to be blatant I do not know how minorities felt years ago during slavery and neither do the minorities living in this country today because slavery no longer exists. That is why I disagree with the idea of compensation for the basis of affirmative action."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Donahoo, S. (2006). Derailing Desegregation: Legal Efforts to End Racial Segregation in Higher Education Before and After Brown. Equity & Excellence in Education, 39(4), 291
• Cose, E. (2006). The Color of Change. Newsweek, 148(20), 52
• Chang, M. J. (2006). The Educational Benefits of Sustaining Cross-Racial Interaction among Undergraduates. Journal of Higher Education, 77(3), 430.
• Chang, M. J. (2006). Affirmative action: Racial preference in black and white. Journal of Higher Education, 77(5), 930.
• Lopez-Vazquez, A. (2005). Affirmative Action in the Name of Restitution, Equity, Diversity and Cultural Democracy. Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 22(16), 38.

More papers on Affirmative Action in College Admissions:

• Argumentative Essay # 3554 : "Affirmative Action in College Admissions"
• Argumentative Essay # 46315 : "Affirmative Action in College Admissions"
• Research Paper # 6733 : "Affirmative Action, Against whom are we Discriminating?"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: