NEWS FEED

Con: Do we still need affirmative action?

Written by Lauren Stepp, Creative Director

The down-on-his luck man we’ll call John Doe struggled and trembled, trying to place the correct number of quarters onto the supermarket countertop. An unemployed Caucasian male, he had spent the last 10 minutes scraping through his wallet and pockets to find enough money to buy his son’s diapers.

A polite smile came from the cashier who waited patiently. He was an African-American man who, only two weeks before, had sat in nervous next to Doe waiting on a job interview with the food store manager. Doe possessed equal qualifications, yet ultimately he lost out on the minimum wage job. Doe had spent the rest of that evening attempting to pinpoint the flaw that had caused him to fail at yet another attempt at employment. Was it character? Was it personality? Or was it race?

In efforts to address and recognize set patterns of prejudice or social exclusion directed towards minorities in both the work field and education system, government agencies established the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act is infamous for creating the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the authority that regulates and enforces federal statutes prohibiting employment discrimiation based on aspects of race, color, religion, nationality or sex. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson issued an executive order which made it necessary for federal contractors to take “affirmative action” to ensure fairness in recruiting, hiring and promotions.

According to recent surveys, Americans do not support special preferences given through affirmative action. Government-mandated “plans” just result in more inequity to remedy inequity. They just support the condescending view that minorities are not qualified for jobs without special treatment.

For the opposing view on this issue, click here.