Papers on "Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?" and similar term paper topics

Paper #023272 :: Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?
Buy and instantly download this paper now

A discussion of affirmative action and how to implement it practically in the work force.

Written in 2002; 994 words; 4 sources; MLA; $ 35.95

Paper Summary:

This paper explores the pros and cons of affirmative action and concludes that race and ethnic experience should be a factor in hiring decisions, to create a more diverse corporate structure and to rectify a historical wrong, but it may not be necessary in all companies, for all minority groups, and in all situations.

From the Paper:

"The general conception of justice as expressed by the late, great Harvard theorist and professor John Rawls is that all social primary goods, such as liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect, are to be distributed equally in any given society. The only exception to this occurs when an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favored. By this theory, therefore, the idea of affirmative action to certain minority groups seems to be justified when it can be proven that particular minority groups within a preexisting social system have been "least favored" in terms of liberty, opportunity, income, wealth, and perhaps most importantly, self-respect.

For example, African Americans would certainly qualify on all of these accounts. This group has been historically deprived of liberty through enslavement, of opportunity through Jim Crow legislation in the South, of income through a denial to equal educational opportunities, of wealth because of the penury of African American families caused by housing discrimination in the North and the Southern sharecropping system, and lastly through self-respect on almost every conceivable level. The latter has been statistically demonstrated through testimony in the Brown v. Board of Education school decision before the Supreme Court. Over the course of this case, children from segregated schools were shown to favor images of whites rather than of blacks as superior, because of the idea of inferiority they had been imbued with by society. Even recently as a study that demonstrated that both blacks and whites were more likely to shoot African-American individuals in a simulated video game, because African American males were more likely to be perceived as threatening, or holding firearms, even though this was not the case in the designed simulation. Furthermore, given that white males have been given privilege and opportunity in abundance in society, and given their families and social structures a corresponding 'leg up' denied to African Americans, affirmative action would seem to have its place."

Tags: John Rawls society liberty opportunity income wealth minority African Americans

More papers on "Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?"

1. Paper #042624 :: Affirmative Action/Employment Equity ( 1,650 words; 3 sources; )
2. Paper #102590 :: A Restorative Justice System ( 2,746 words; 6 sources; APA )
3. Paper #056652 :: Restorative and Retributive Justice ( 3,058 words; 11 sources; MLA )
4. Paper #094573 :: Affirmative Action ( 1,853 words; 4 sources; MLA )
5. Paper #049357 :: Affirmative Action ( 1,354 words; 5 sources; MLA )

About AcaDemon

We have thousands of high-quality term papers, research papers, essays, book reports and dissertations on every topic. At AcaDemon, you can download those term papers to help you write yours! You can be sure that the term paper, essay, book report or research paper, you download are top-quality, competitively priced and high-level work.

Look for more research papers, essays and book reports on Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?

This Free Term Paper Abstract is a part of our Term Paper Library. Here you can purchase research papers, examples of essays, academic dissertations, articles, notes, analytical papers, book reports, stories and poems. We have thousands of persuasive, point-of-view, narrative, critical, compare and contrast and other types of essays in our Library. You can also find here Term papers on "Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?", Essays on "Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?", Research papers on "Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?", Student papers on "Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?", Book reports on "Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?", Dissertation on "Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?", Thesis on "Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?", Summary of paper on "Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?", Articles written on "Affirmative Action: Oxymoronic or Synonymous with Justice?".