Weighing the Morality of Affirmative Action

4 Pages 1063 Words

Weighing the Morality of Affirmative Action


Is affirmative action, as racial preference, morally justified? Affirmative action in the United States began with efforts to confirm the elimination of discriminatory practices, but soon developed into programs promoting preferential treatment. This particular type of treatment has been upheld as repercussions for past injustices, and yet it lifts up the same values as those injustices such as favoritism. It has been praised for increasing minority access to business and professional careers, but also blamed for degrading standards in the process. By valuing one’s credentials more, solely on the basis of their nationality undermines the foundation on which this country was started. These ideas include tolerance and equal opportunities for all.
The emotions involved in the controversy over preference are powerful. The purpose of this essay is not to arouse these emotions or to persuade by means of them. Rather, to inquire whether there are moral principles, commonly practiced, being infracted. American law on this subject is uncertain, even some what contradictory in some cases, but everyone can make their own deductions from what the law states because one’s opinion and morals will determine their position on the issue.
Preference on the basis of race or national origin occurs primarily in higher education. During the recent decades, the minority groups most often designated for preference have been African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asian Americans living. In an article in Newsweek the author writes, “If the goal of affirmative action is to create a more equitable society, it should be defined by its tendency to reduce people to fixed categories: at many universities it is who you are rather than what you are. As a result, affirmative action programs rarely do benefit the children of middle- and upper-class black Americans.” (Armstrong, 33) The decisions f...