Positive and Negative Effects of Affirmative Action

¶ … Positive and Negative Effects of Affirmative Action

Affirmative action may be one of the most highly-contested legal developments to come out of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. The theory behind affirmative action is that minorities in the United States were long denied the same opportunities as non-minorities, and, therefore, were not in a position to play on level field. Therefore, affirmative action would encourage employers or educators to give preference to a candidate on the basis of minority status. Affirmative action had some very positive effects; it is impossible to imagine the diversity of the modern workplace without affirmative action policies. Furthermore, affirmative action helped demonstrate that, given the opportunity to excel, minorities could achieve the same range of accomplishments as non-minorities. However, it is irresponsible to look at affirmative action as a wholly positive policy. Affirmative action did result in better-qualified non-minority candidates being passed over in favor of less qualified minority candidates. While this may actually have only had a minor impact in the lives of the individuals in question, it helped contribute to an undercurrent of thought that minorities are still somehow less capable than non-minorities. This has contributed to a very resilient strain of racism in educated groups, and this strain of racism has proven to be very resistant to education and eradication.

The fact that affirmative action has had mixed results makes it very difficult to take a position about whether affirmative action should be continued or ended. In order to answer that question, it is very important to understand the various arguments made for and against affirmative action. After understanding those arguments, one can reach a decision about the appropriateness of affirmative action in the 21st century. The conclusion reached by the author is that affirmative action is an appropriate part of this part of the 21st century, but that the policy should be subject to constant revision to reflect the evolving social norms of the surrounding culture.

The arguments against affirmative action are generally valid. These arguments include the negative impacts on non-minorities as well as the negative impact on minorities. The primary argument is that affirmative action leads to reverse discrimination, an argument that has merit since affirmative action permits employers to use race as a primary hiring qualification (Messerli, 2012). The critics who point out reverse discrimination often suggest that the ideal is a color-blind society, not a shift from group to group in who will receive preferential treatment. Next, the concern is that affirmative action lowers expectations in such a way that students and employees are not adequately prepared to progress beyond their current level (Messerli, 2012). One of the more interesting criticisms of affirmative action is that "it demeans true minority achievement" because success is recognized based on the policies of affirmative action rather than on individual merit. Finally, critics suggest that affirmative action is, in and of itself, a racist policy, since it suggests that minorities cannot achieve at the same level as non-minorities.