A Case Agianst Affirmative Action

4 Pages 1008 Words

Ever since the American social revolution precipitated by the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and ‘60’s, the United States’ government has sought an appropriate resolution concerning the question of race relations. In this country it was soon realized that, despite constitutional amendments and various legislative initiatives ensuring equal treatment for all citizens, widespread “institutional” racism continued to act as a reinforcement of social disparities along racial lines. As a result, minorities – African Americans in particular – have exclusively benefited from policies and programs aimed at narrowing this social gap between minorities and majorities. The policy of affirmative action in college admissions, and its relation to employment and narrowing social inequalities between minorities and majorities, however, is inherently unjust. In this paper, I will attempt to explain why affirmative action is not only unjust, but also a misguided policy which will reap results contrary to its ultimate goals.
Affirmative action, it seams to many White people and a few minorities, is hypocritically unjust for fairly obvious reasons. For one, why would any social policy aimed at providing equal treatment for all people regardless of race, differentiate between people on the basis of race, not to mention use that basis as a reason for treating them differently? Isn’t it unfair to discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, whether they be members of the minority or majority? Most opponents of affirmative action would agree that, just because discrimination against non-White minorities occurred in the past, reverse discrimination should not be implemented against the White majority – a majority which had nothing to do with the discrimination of the past -- as a means of undoing past injustices and narrowing racial gaps.
Proponents of affirmative action policies, on the other hand, would probably respon...