Affirmative Action Planning
Affirmative Action
Through its reference to affirmative action, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ushered in a remedy for disadvantage and discrimination that was intended to reach into the hallowed halls of higher education, union halls, and corporate meeting rooms. President Johnson extended The Act to federal contractors through an Executive Order, and again the charge was to take affirmative action to ensure discrimination was not occurring. The Act was intended to guide and coerce social change, and it empowered the federal courts to penalize violators. The law was based on the construct that people who have been historically excluded from substantive social institutionalized benefits -- culture, education, employment -- needed a boost in the form of preferential selection. This means that the same factors that trigger or support exclusion, by law (ethnicity, gender, and race), become the same factors that drive the affirmative actions that serve to increase representation of minorities and women in these institutionalized endeavors.
In this review of the literature, the fundamental considerations of affirmative action are explored. A meaningful review of the affirmative action literature must consider both legal considerations and public perspectives. Legal and regulatory bodies in the United States have been deeply engaged in creating, applying, and ensuring the implementation of affirmative action rules. Public debate regarding affirmative action has been as vigorously engaging with the perspective of citizens trending to polarity. However, over the past several decades, these robust pro and con positions appear to bracket a wholesomely-sized middle inhabited by people undecided about the effectiveness of affirmative action rules, the need to continue affirmative action policies, and the impact of increased national diversity on the concept of inclusion-exclusion.
Harris (2009) reviewed the policy implementation of affirmative action in an effort to determine who has benefitted from the law, and to what degree those benefits have been achieved. Studies and research reviewed by Harris indicate that when affirmative action is judiciously implemented, the law does in fact bring about the policy aim, which is colloquially referred to as "leveling of the playing field." Harris (2009) points to benefits realized for both individuals and organizations. Indeed, some of his findings are surprising: higher stock prices and benefits to white males are associated with firms that practice affirmative action. According to Harris (2009), some experts attribute these benefits to an overall increase in the performance of organizations that embrace affirmative action, which may be related to better compensation for all the employee groups in a company, hiring of a diverse workforce that draws from the most talented in the pool, and to in increased capacity to deal with challenges in the external environment and competitive market. Harris (2009) also points to the highly resistant glass ceiling and gendered roles, which are just as evident in the governmental bodies charged with affirmative action regulations as it is in private enterprise. Implementation of affirmative action policy, Harris (2009) asserted, lacks teeth and "still lags in decreasing the prevalence of discrimination in the workplace that threaten to retard and/or prevent the advancement of these [minorities and women] groups" (p. 368).
The critical theory perspective of Darity, et al. (2011) enables construction of a model that considers the ramifications of changes to the inclusion criteria for affirmative action eligibility. The term subaltern is used to refer to those individuals or social groups excluded from the dominant, hegemonic power structure through geographic, political, or social membership. Darity, et al. (2011) explored affirmative action eligibility outcomes for subaltern groups in the United States and in rural India. The model developed by Darity, et al. (2011) showed the numbers of affirmative action beneficiaries when eligible individuals were identified through class-based markers or group-based markers. Particularly when eligibility for certain positions was based on performance, skill sets, and knowledge, more individuals were identified in the subaltern group-based than in class-based situations as being eligible for affirmative action (Darity, et al., 2011). The important distinction between these subaltern groups is that means testing of some type is used to identify affirmative action beneficiaries in a class-based model (Darity, et al., 2011). A group-based model tends to be less selective in that it may not discriminate among attributes such as level of education, annual household income, and the like. (Darity, et al., 2011) From this, it is apparent that there is a dilution effect, which limits access to preferential treatment by under-represented groups when a class-based model is preferred...
Education-Administration Education Discrimination to Teachers Teacher Discrimination Cases Educational instructors, especially the teachers provide the necessitated skills and knowledge to students, thereby equipping them with essential life skills. The teachers are in most cases employed by union organizations, but in some state and cities, they are directly employed from the school boards. In the latter situation, teacher-related issues are handled by the respective school's board committees. Despite the employer's position or rank, individual
Goodyear which effectively denied employees the right to sue for wage discrimination after the passing of 180 days that "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was so incensed she read her scathing dissent aloud from the bench. She defended Lilly Ledbetter's right to sue her employer, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc. For pay discrimination on the basis of sex, giving a not-so-gentle reminder of the realities of the American workplace."
Racial Discrimination and the Death Penalty The United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that at the end of the year 2000 that there was 1,381,892 total number of prisoners under the jurisdiction of federal or state adult correctional authorities (State pp). During 2000, the prison population rose at the lowest rate since 1972 and had the smallest absolute increase since 1980 (State pp). Relative to the number
Disparity and Discrimination The history of criminal justice and race. The racial makeup of the criminal justice system. The misunderstanding between discrimination and disparity. How disparity and discrimination are addressed in the criminal justice system. The difference between discrimination and disparity. scholarly articles - each addressing an aspect of criminal justice. How race and disparity are seen in the criminal justice system. How race and discrimination are seen in the criminal justice system. The treatment of criminals regardless of
Behavior and Bias in Access Two-thirds of all students receiving special education in the United States are boys and gender-based behavioral differences and gender bias are behind it (Rousso, 2003). Girls need to show more significant levels of disability than boys to receive service. When they do, they are assigned to more restrictive educational environments than boys. All available data show that women and girls with disabilities do not do as
Under these circumstances, an ethical dilemma is born. Should society control its development or leave it to chance? And in the case that it should control it, which categories should it help? If the person in the above mentioned example is helped, we could assume that in a certain way, the person who was not helped because he or she already disposed of the necessary means, the latter one might
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