Affirmative action is the rule and policy that is considered to assist a small group of people in terms of their education, job, business and employment and any social issues faced by the group. Affirmative action has seen a radical change in the way it has been handled in the past few decades. Affirmative action, like crime, is often portrayed as a threat to the working class that comes not from the top, but from the bottom and from “the other” (Fobanjong, 2001, p28). There have been numerous cases on Affirmative action and the minority community believes that policies created in Affirmative action disgrace all successful minority individuals.
Discrimination is seen in many forms and it varies depending on the race, poverty, gender, religion, educational background, political connections and social status. The objective of affirmative action was to encourage procedures that accomplish non-discrimination in any form and arrive at racial equality by fighting the odds and support people to achieve one and the same opportunity. The basic rule of affirmative action was to employ people in the government organizations without being prejudiced in respect to race, national ethnicity, and religion. Affirmative action provides good prospects to the under presented groups in the society. The government and educational organizations make certain that their programs are valuable to the minority groups and they ensure complete participation from these groups.
The policies created for affirmative action are based upon the results of the previous discrimination, and deal with the present discrimination. In both the United States and India, affirmative action policies were developed to correct for past practices of institutionalized discrimination (Fobanjong, 2001, p.144). There has been a continuous effort by the proponents who have been trying to understand the earlier pitfalls of to avoid them in future. The objective is produce an unbiased and long lasting policy to provide an equal opportunity.
Some significant cases on affirmative action are the DeFunis v/s University of Washington case in which the admission of Defunis was denied based on the standards of the university. Another considerable case of affirmative action was the case of University of California- Davis Medical School (UCDMS) v/s Bakke, a 32 year old white applicant whose application to the medical college was rejected twice though he had good grades than the other minority candidates who were admitted. The conclusion of this case was handled by different judges though it was concluded that the race factor could be only be one of the factors of rejecting the admission of Bakke, and the racial discrimination cannot be considered as the base for denying admission in the medical school. The Bakke case is called a landmark as it created a small revolution in the policies of affirmative action. It was also concluded without any valid reason rejecting a candidate completely on the basis of race was unlawful. As Davis medical school did not have any strong proofs or standards that defined the rejections of candidates, the school had to admit Bakke into the medical program.
The basis for the conclusion in Bakke’s case had been derived from multiple factors. As stated by (Stefoff, 2006, p.75), No one race or ethnic group should ever be accorded preferential treatment over other, and there is no place for racial groups in America, only in individual accomplishment can equality be achieved. The important consideration while deciding the case of Bakke was that the special admission programs in Davis medical school dishonored Title VI (a law for the civil rights that disallows racial favoritism in any institution that is funded by the central government) because it did not consider an applicant and excluded the candidate on the basis of race. Many institutions use quota system to allocate the seats to the applicants and majority of them consider race as a key factor to exclude these applicants from getting a seat. The institutional programs must be created to accommodate applicants from all races.
The Civil Rights Act had defined laws about the public and private behavior when it was formed. There are other Acts that inform about equality, like the Employment Equality Act, and these acts were resolutely made to encourage and progress democracy and exhibit the right to equality. Depending on the various legislation acts there are some positive and negative results; some of the positive effects of affirmative action legislation are the past discriminations can be addressed, diversity can be maximized in all employments and educational institutions, the social status of the under presented people can be known and an the equality can be restored to gain all the resources of the society. Some of the negative impacts of affirmative action legislation are the rise of quota system, developing the people of higher classes in society and selection based on educational criteria. When qualifications information was added, it alleviated most of the negative effects of affirmative action (Salinas, 2003, p.55).
Affirmative action programs are still considered the most successful programs to determine the discrimination based on race, caste, sex, ethnicity, and national origin. These programs help to reduce the occurrence and the severity of discrimination. It can be argued that racial and sexual discrimination are the issues of past and affirmative action would not be of relevance in the current generation. Affirmative action has been in the democracy since many decades and its policies have been used in terms of employment and educational discrepancies. This is the right time to apply these moral threats on the supreme command, the government; to create new policies that eradicate the issues related to equality, poverty, social status and gender inequality. People are from diverse backgrounds and everyone has an equal right to display their intelligence to their full potential, and this is the current issue that must be confronted in any country that still lives with racial or sexual discrimination. Affirmative Action legislation is still appropriate because people want opportunity with freedom and human ability with equality.
References
Fobanjong, John., (2001). Understanding the Backlash against Affirmative Action. Illustrated. Nova Publishers.
Salinas, Moises.F., (2003). The Politics of Stereotype: Psychology and Affirmative Action. Greenwood Publishing Group
Stetoff, Rebecca., (2006). The Bakke Case: Challenge to Affirmative Action. illustrated, annotated. Marshall Cavendish.
