Positive and Negative Effects of Affirmative Action Essay

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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.

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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.

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