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Affirmative Action

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order 10925, an order that established the President’s Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity. It was from this order that our modern system of affirmative action arose, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The issue of Affirmative Action is one of the most loaded political and social issues of our time. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and gathered 300 CEOs to discuss ways of “integrating our nation’s workplaces, schools, and economic institutions.”

Flexible goals and timetables were one concept the group devised as a means of opening access to typically marginalized groups, primarily women and minorities. As Melvin Urofsky points out in Affirmative Action on Trial, Presidents, American courts, corporations, educational institutions and federal contractors have been arguing over the issue of affirmative action ever since. Urofsky’s book is an effort to understand the current perspectives of both sides in the affirmative action debate. We now live in an era where many argue for dismantling affirmative action, seeing racial and gender quotas and racial or gender preferences are discrimination in reverse. They argue affirmative action programs hurt white people by forcing certain numbers of minorities and women who are less qualified to be hired. The other side of the argument focuses on a misunderstanding of affirmative action as nothing but quotas or goals. It does not view affirmative action as racism or sexism in reverse but rather as a legitimate and successful means of widening access to education and employment. In the 1977 Supreme Court decision in Bakke v. University of California, the Court held that quotas in hiring and educational admissions is illegal. It has been a standard bearer in affirmative action debate ever since. Proponents of affirmative action insist it is about opening access...

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Affirmative Action. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 08:30, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1684893.html