AN ESSAY: AFFIRMATIVE ACTION - IS IT DESTROYING AMERICA?
This essay considers the issue of affirmative action as the concept has been and to some extent still is applied in the United States. Specifically, information is developed and presented with a view toward answering the following question: Is affirmative action destroying America?
An important factor in this essay is the criterion or criteria that will determine the answer to the question. One approach to the determination of the basis for answering the question is to base the answer on the employment-related effects of the application of affirmative action programs and laws. This approach is frequently applied by both proponents of affirmative action and opponents of affirmative action, wherein each side of the issue cites statistics to "prove their point". A second approach to the determination of the basis for answering the question is to base the answer on evidence of social dissension present in the American population that may be attributed to opposing positions associated with the concept and practice of affirmative action in the United States. This second approach is the approached applied in this essay.
The next issue to address is the determination of a valid way to assess divisions in American society that may be attributed to disagreements about the concept and application of affirmative action in the United States. For purposes of this essay, the data required to answer the question were obtained from the 2000 American National Election Study, Ver. 2 รน ANES-2 (Burns, Kinder, Rosenstone, Sapiro, & the National Election Studies, 2002). The data were analyzed through the application of cross-tabulation and (a) the calculation the gamma statistic as a measure of association and (b) the chi square statistic to determine the statistical significance of the relationships between the varying perceptions of affirmative action (as a dependent variable) and ...