Affirmative Action and its Goals Term Paper by Top Papers

The paper discusses how under the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, the policy of affirmative action was born; its goal being to give all citizens equal treatment and attempt to make reparations for past injustices experienced by certain groups of people. The paper explains that this new policy, an offshoot of the Civil Right Act of 1964, required employers to take steps to remedy any past discrimination and give special consideration, in college admissions and jobs, to members of groups that have faced discrimination in the past ("Title"). The paper relates that this policy applies to all federal, state and local government employers, as well as private employers who perform services for or sell products to the federal government (Janda, Berry, Goldman, & Hula). The paper looks at several landmark cases that have arisen regarding affirmative action and its tenets, such as the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978. The paper discusses how in the Bakke case, Allan Bakke, a White male was denied admission to the medical school at the University of California, Davis campus, although his test scores were adequate for entry; the school had set aside sixteen of the one hundred seats available to new applicants for designated minority groups.