Affirmative Action

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at whether affirmative action policies remain relevant today, with a particular focus on racial minorities such as African-Americans and Latinos. In the first part, the paper defines affirmative action, traces the policies history and examines their goals. The second part is a critical examination of the arguments of affirmative action supporters. The third part studies the arguments against affirmative action by evaluating both the policies effectiveness and their deleterious consequences for African-Americans and other racial minorities. In the conclusion, this paper maintains that though they were instituted with the best of intentions, current affirmative action policies are ineffective against addressing racial discrimination and have even had harmful effects on the people they were intended to help.

From the Paper:

"This classical definition of affirmative action as preferential treatment has since spawned more contentious definitions. Opponents of affirmative action, such as law professor Lino Graglia thus characterizes affirmative action as "a euphemism for discrimination: the granting of preference to some individuals and therefore disfavoring of others on the basis of their race" (47). In this paper, affirmative action is defined neutrally as any policy or effort to facilitate racial integration in society by developing more opportunities in education and employment to people who have traditionally been at the margins of social, economic and political life due to social perception stemming from their gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, or disabilities."

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