Affirmative Action to Balance Inequalities

There are those who think that affirmative action is not working toward balancing the inequities of the past and feel that instead it merely provides preferential treatment to a handful of minority employees. These opponents of affirmative action are for the most part white males who fear that they may become victims of reverse discrimination if members of the minorities compete with them for the same jobs. The threat of reverse discrimination is based on the idea that affirmative action requires employers to fulfill a particular quota of minority employees. In order to meet this quota, employers may hire minority members and pass over white males who are equally or perhaps better qualified for the job. Opponents of affirmative action were particularly alarmed by the 1979 Supreme Court case of Steelworkers v. Weber which they claimed permitted "racial discrimination against wh

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question hired fewer women and minorities than white men. This could be shown in court by providing statistics attesting to the number, race, and sex of the employees hired at the plant or firm. It was then the employer's responsibility to try to prove in court that discrimination had not occurred. With Wards v. Antonio, however, statistical data is no longer accepted as evidence and "the burden of proof unfairly remains with the employees, making discrimination suits much more expensive and harder to win" (Medina 2). The Supreme Court also heard the Martin v. Wilks case in June of 1989, which involved allegations of reverse discrimination against white fire fighters in Birmingham, Alabama. This decision was harshly criticized by proponents of affirmative action because it legitimized the claims of those few white men in American society who are opposed to the concept of full equality for all. In Martin v. Wilks, the Supreme Court decided that "affirmative action suits that were thought to have been settled years earlier can be reopened and challenged in court" (Levander 1C). Thus, cases of alleged reverse discrimination from any time in the past can now be brought into the courts, thereby countering the legitimate aims an
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Approximate Word count = 2201
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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