Reverse Discrimination of Affirmative Action Programs

Statements about what affirmative action is not are in actuality statements about what it should not be. An EEO publication (Equal Employment Opportunity) offers these statements to clarify the issue: "Affirmative action should not be reverse discrimination against non-minorities nor males; it is not an excuse for lowering performance or conduct standards; and it is not a vehicle for hiring minorities in lower-skill jobs and leaving them there" (36). As will be seen, however, affirmative action programs, regardless of intent, do, in fact, discriminate in reverse.

After the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, it became apparent that there existed barriers against full equality in employment. Aptitude tests, for example, were seen as one example of such a barrier. Minorities with a lack of sufficient education argued that such tests posed challenges to them on the basis of prejudice and discrimination.

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we define the dominant culture in the U.S. today, as yesterday, to be white males, then non-dominant culture groups, despite their minority status in terms of numbers, will still need an added impetus toward securing employment. It becomes clear that any hiring agency which attempts to be entirely fair, according to a confusing number of guidelines, will find itself in a no-win situation. Those who say that a minority group is defined by its numbers (its quantity) will find that minority status as a statistical entity may be short lived; similarly, those who say that a minority group is defined by its relationship to the dominant culture (its quality) may find that eventually its members have become the dominant culture, and minority status is no longer an issue. Thus, affirmative action programs may come and go, dependent upon the shifting tides of demographics and political sentiment. The fact that today's programs may be discarded in favor of more practicable solutions should not surprise anyone. If the above ways of looking at minority status add confusion, courts, including the Supreme Court, have not clarified the issues. Jost notes that "affirmative action law [is] complex and . . . unclear. Since the 1970s, the S
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Approximate Word count = 3065
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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