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Affirmative action applies to employers in hiring and promoting minorities and women, governments in reserving a portion of their contracts for businesses owned by minorities and women, and colleges and universities in admitting minorities and women (Welch, 504). The history of affirmative action has its roots in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which stemmed from the 1954 United States Supreme Court Case of Brown vs. Board of Education. In this case, the Court ruled unanimously that school segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendments equal protection clause. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order # 11246 at Howard University that required federal contractors to undertake affirmative action to increase the number of minorities that they employ.
He wanted to ensure that minorities were recruited to have real opportunities to be hired and then eventually get a promotion. In 1969, the Department of Labor exposed widespread racial discrimination of the Construction Department so President Richard M. Nixon decided to incorporate a system of "goals and timetables" to evaluate federal construction companies according to affirmative action. This idea of "goals and timetables" provided guidelines for companies to follow and comply with affirmative action regulations. During the presidency of Gerald R.
Ford, he extended affirmative action to people with disabilities and Vietnam veterans but there were no goals or timetables for these two groups. This type of affirmative action required recruitment efforts, accessibility, accommodation and reviews of physical and mental job qualifications. President Jimmy Carter consolidated all federal agencies that were required by law to follow the affirmative action play into the Department of Labor. Before Carter did this, each agency handled affirmative action in its own individual way, some were not as consistent as other agencies were. He created the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program (OFCCP) in 1978 to ensure compliance with the affirmative action policies.
Affirmative action began to go downhill when Ronald Reagan and later George Bush came into office. Affirmative action lost some gains it had made and was more or less ignored by the Republicans in the White House and in Congress. Affirmative action was being neglected by our federal administrators. But during this time of neglect there was one positive aspect, the passage of Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The ADA bans discrimination against workers with disabilities and requires employers to make reasonable accommodations so they can work (Fram, 18). Finally to the Presidency of Bill Clinton.
The Republicans are attempting to scare people into changing their party lines by misusing affirmative action. They are saying that affirmative action is nothing more than a quota or reverse discrimination. As you can see, there have been many additions to the policy of affirmative action. People from the Vietnam War, people with disabilities, and minority groups have made gains in the workforce.
However, more research needs to be conducted as to the qualifications of all of these people to make sure that race is not a determining factor in the giving and receiving of jobs. The best person for the job, no matter what race, should be given the job. Now that I have given a brief overview of the history of affirmative action, we will discuss the positive aspects. As you already know affirmative action was implemented with the idea and hope that America would finally become truly equal. The tension of the 1960 s civil rights movement had made it very clear that the nations minority and female population were not receiving equal social and economic opportunity. The implementation of affirmative action was America's first honest attempt at solving a problem, it had previously chose to ignore.
Affirmative action has had its greatest amount of success in city, state, and government jobs. Since the 1960 s, the area of law enforcement witnessed the greatest increase in minority applicants, and in jobs offered to minorities. This should be viewed as an extremely positive thing, because prior to affirmative action these jobs were almost completely closed off to minorities and woman. The influx has been greatest in the area of government, state and city, because this type of work is easier for affirmative action to watch over and regulate.
Affirmative action has experienced considerably less success in integration in big business. This is do to the fact that big business has been more resistant to affirmative action and harder to regulate. A good example of affirmative action struggling in a large business would be The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. It is, in sum, an agency that has gone a long way toward complying with the letter of affirmative action goals while falling short in spirit -- leaving many minority employees saying they suffer from second-class treatment, harassment and worse (Palmer). However, this is an area that most supporters of affirmative action expect to see a change for the better occur. Actually, within the MBTA, that change has already begun.
The ranks of minority employees at MBTA have grown steadily over the years from less than 2 % in 1966 to 6 % in 1976 to more than 28. 6 % today (Palmer). There are many people who don't see affirmative action as a positive thing and would like to see it eliminated. One disturbed writer feels that; Affirmative action remains the whipping post and rallying cry of many white males, even though there exists no statistical proof that blacks have taken jobs or lucrative career opportunities away from white men, or even interrupted their dominance in the workplace (Lowery, p. 148). In my opinion these people need to realize that thirty years of affirmative action isn't a long enough time to solve a major societal problem. Affirmative action is making steady strides in helping the problem of racial inequality in America. Affirmative action is something we should all support, until better and more effective plans are proposed.
Since Affirmative action is a compromise, it does not please everybody. To tell you the truth Affirmative action is far from perfect. First of all, many people feel that Affirmative Action uses reverse discrimination to solve the problem of discrimination. In that, it promotes the hiring of less skilled workers: the employers have to choose from the best available employee...
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Research essay sample on On Affirmative Action In America
