Affirmative Action

Affirmative action is a confrontational subject in today’s society.  It is defined as “a policy designed to redress past discrimination against women and minority groups through measures to improve their economic and educational opportunities” (Dictionary.com, 2008).  With educational standards rising, especially at the college level, affirmative action is becoming more controversial.

       This movement is particularly debatable because it is implemented as a means of admission into colleges in an attempt to address equality issues.  The result is that sometimes less qualified students are chosen over those who are more qualified for entrance into colleges based on race or gender.  One could assert that this is a form of “reverse discrimination.”  One could argue that in order for equality to truly be present, no one should be provided “favors”, admitted into college, or given jobs based on race.  However, affirmative action does precisely that. 

Affirmative action is the source of extreme legal, political and social debate, with a great deal of focus on higher education. In view of the fact that Justice Powell’s opinion in the Supreme Court’s 1978 ruling in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, declared that “a university could take race into account as one among a number of factors in student admissions for the purpose of achieving student body diversity,” affirmative action programs in student admissions and financial aid, as well as in staff employment, have largely been based on diversity (American Association of University Professors, 2005). Recently, though, affirmative action programs, and the diversity motivation, specifically, were disputed in cases at the universities of Texas, Georgia, Michigan, and Washington. In 2003, 25 years after the Bakke decision, the Supreme Court again attended to the issue of affirmative action, delivering its decision in the University of Michigan cases. In the ruling the Supreme Court sanctioned diversity in higher education as a justification for including affirmative action in the admissions process. Nevertheless, while this judgment is the answer to years of deliberation and legal action on affirmative action, it will not conclude the heated discussion. One can anticipate both legal and political disputes to affirmative action, as academic institutions strive to implement the essentials of the Supreme Court’s ruling, and as affirmative action adversaries enlarge the concentration of their legal and political strikes. (American Association of University Professors).