Affirmative action entails giving minorities a head start in areas like higher education and employment; sometimes referred to as positive discrimination. However to more conservative groups and many Republican politicians it can be seen as reverse discrimination, patronising to minorities and unfair to majorities. The first programme of affirmative action was brought in by Kennedy in 1961, the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Council (EEOC), this ensured the hiring and employment practices would be free from racial bias. Affirmative action tends to be largely supported by the Democrats, with the belief of ‘Equality of Results vs. Equality Opportunity’ in that the burdens of racism can only be overcome by taking race into account.
However, it would not be fair to say that Presidential action was non-existence. When Harry S. Truman was President he actively exercised his presidential role to improve civil rights in a number of ways. In 1948 Truman issued Executive Orders banning segregation in the armed forces, guaranteeing fair employment practices in the civil service and introduced a ‘Fair Deal’ housing programme that aimed to get rid of deprived urban housing and build better houses for black citizens. This shows a significant extent of leadership and drive the President had to improve civil rights and shows that his actions resulted in improved civil rights. However, the majority of his plans to desegregate and improve civil rights backfired; the fair deal programme built fewer houses than it knocked down, leaving many African American families homeless; the Fair Employment Practice Commission was underfunded and had little support from colleagues.
The ruling, while another defeat for segregation in law, did not have an immediate impact. The Supreme Court in this case played a large part in being responsible for how long it took to secure better status for blacks. In 1946, Truman did establish a civil rights committee whose task was to examine violence against African Americans within America itself. This committee was filled with known liberals who Truman knew would produce a report that would and should shock mainstream America. The report was issued in October 1947 and it was called "To Secure These Rights".
This idea could be formed from the fact that with affirmative action laws, sometimes the most qualified and deserving applicant is not provided with the job or the acceptance due to requirements of fulfilling reserved affirmative action laws. Therefore, while affirmative action was created to remove prejudice and discrimination to the minority groups, it actually began to persecute the people that do not fall into those categories. Reverse discrimination due to Affirmative Action is quite common throughout universities and the work force. A particular case in which this is shown is that of a man named Allan Bakke. Bakke was rejected twice from a medical school that accepted significantly less qualified applicants.
The roots of affirmative action in employment lie in a set of Executive Orders that were issued by the U.S. presidents in the 1960s. March 6, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925 which created the committee on equal employment opportunity and mandates that federal funds “take affirmative action” to ensure that hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias. Affirmative Action was first implemented under President Johnson’s administration. The Pros of Affirmative Action: Employers use affirmative action in recruiting and hiring practices, personnel policies, and ultimately employment outcomes. President George W. Bush appointed a 21 member bipartisan body called the “Glass Ceiling Commission” in 1994 to validate statistical proof of that racial and gender barriers still exit in corporate America.
This order declared that federal contractors should “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during their employment, without regard to race, creed, color or national origin.” Thus, the original goal of the civil rights movement had been 'color-blind' laws. However, many people believed that simply ending a long-standing policy of discrimination did not go far enough and more proactive measures to increase equality were necessary. As President Lyndon B. Johnson stated in a 1965 speech, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and say, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.” I suppose this is what Eastland meant by finding the constraints of colorblind law inconvenient and the spread of preferential treatment. Yet his choice of words when describing these events in history leads one to believe that the founders he so contrarily speaks of had a personal motive in establishing affirmative action, when in fact, both “founders” were white political figures who had nothing to gain from the enactment but to try to
Josephine Clark SOC-322-(WA) 2 Semester-September 2011 Affirmative action involves federal government measures for reducing institutional discrimination. The purpose of Affirmative Action is to provide opportunities for minorities and women but companies use affirmative action to create quotas. Before the government got involved with the institutional discrimination, minorities and women were denied opportunities of equal rights. Affirmative action gives special consideration to racial minorities and women, for jobs and educational opportunities. Affirmative action also gives preferential treatment to minorities because they are discriminated against by the normal operations of a society.
The Second World War is a significant event in history. I believe that it made a small amount of difference to the lives of black Americans; it was able to change some of the attitudes of white Americans; it helped influence the passing of the Fair Employment Practices Commission (1941) and also helped reduce the unemployment figures of black Americans. Although it made a substational difference, things were still not perfect. Black Americans were still targeted by extremist members of the Ku Klux Klan and they were still treated as second-class citizens. In this essay, I will analyze the ways lives changed for black Americans after the Second World War, as well as this I will look at the ways they may not have changed.
Their concepts of diversity have been formed based on stereotypes and prejudices that have morphed into inaccurate thoughts and views, but I know that way of think can be shallow and empty. For my college experience, I was to interact with people who look and think like me, and who don’t look and think I like me, which will explained my intellectual horizon and add meaning to my college years. In the last year several major changes have taking place in America, the First African-American President Barack H. Obama was elected and Sonia Sotomayor was appointed as First Hispanic Supreme Court Justice and both of these great accomplishments are examples of diversity at its finest. Therefore, attending college near the Capital of the United States with all its diversity, will help me gain and understanding of such diverse first
Equal Treatment The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women in 1961 led to the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and President John F. Kennedy’s banning of sex discrimination in federal employment. In 1964, in congressional debates over Title VII of 1964 Civil Rights Act, conservatives added an amendment to include gender, hoping it would kill the bill, but the amendment and full bill passed. Although future National Organization for Women (NOW) founders Aileen Hernandez and Richard Graham fought hard as members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination, they were ultimately outnumbered 3–2, and the EEOC decided in September 1965 that sex segregation in job advertising was permissible. A month later, at a conference on Title VII and the EEOC, Dr. Pauli Murray — a law professor at Yale and a member of the President’s Commission on the