Affirmative Action

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, in 1961, President John F. Kennedy created the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, the precursor of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The paper also explains that the intent of the Civil Rights Act, signed in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, was to help partially redress the wrongs inflicted upon black Americans by slavery. The paper relates that the resistance by many states to their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 led to many now famous Supreme Court decisions such as "Brown v. Board of Education". The paper concludes that, today, automatic race-based hiring and educational institution admissions are undermining some of its very worthwhile and justified intentions.

From the Paper:

"The administration of President Richard Nixon was forced to balance the competing interests of ensuring Affirmative Action compliance with the concept of fundamental fairness guaranteed by the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, pursuant to which white students and white employment applicants had claimed "reverse" racial discrimination in connection with their rejection. After years of failed attempts to integrate certain industries, particularly those controlled by powerful unions, President Nixon issued plans like the 1969 "Philadelphia Order" to break unlawful resistance to Equal Employment Opportunity goals in the construction industry."

Sample of Sources Used:

• The American Association for Affirmative Action website. Accessed October 6, 2007, at: http://www.affirmativeaction.org/about.html
• Dershowitz, A. (2002) Shouting Fire: Civil Rights in a Turbulent Age. Little Brown: Boston
• Hall, K.(1992) The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. Oxford University Press: New York
• Sorensen, T. (1965) Kennedy. Harper & Row: New York

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