Affirmative Action and Its Strengths and Weaknesses

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, as part of his campaign for civil rights that began during the Kennedy Administration, spearheaded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress. Under the Act, Title VII specifically prohibited discrimination based an race, color, religion, sex or national origin in all employment practices, including hiring, firing, promotion, compensation, and provision of benefits (U.S. Commission on..., 1982, p. 2). Following its Passage came the Equal Pay Act which forbade employers from maintaining different pay scales for men and women who perform "equal work."

These laws were revolutionary in the fact that they challenged longstanding practices which limited employment opportunities for minorit

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les such as Jewish Americans or Japanese and Chinese Americans, who have all suffered discrimination, now have better income than whites (Beer, 1987, p. 64). "It has never been shown that discrimination is the sole cause of statistical disparity; it has never been shown that statistical disparity is an acceptable criterion for defining the problem of (discrimination)" (Beer, 1987, p. 64). Such information asks the question whether affirmative action is the correct approach in resolving inequality in the work place. Then there is the concern about preferential treatment and the damage it may cause to those who suffer its consequences. Simultaneously, those who are beneficiaries of the program may come to question their own self-worth, to wonder if they really made it on their own or whether sex or ethnicity factored into their success. Opinion polls have shown that the American public accepts affirmative action in its nondiscriminatory, original concept. However, a 1984 poll conducted by Gallup revealed that Americans definitely are opposed to reverse discrimination (Beer, 1987, p. 65). It found that only ten percent endorsed preferential treatment, while eighty-four percent asserted that ability should be the main consi
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Approximate Word count = 1759
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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