Maxandfacts: Affirmative Action

NOTE: I would like to finish updating this, and fully fleshing out the arguments in it, but I felt it was sufficient enough in case the team needs it over the weekend.

Affirmative Action

What is Affirmative Action?

Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, sex or national origin"[1] into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and education to public contracting and health programs. “Affirmative action” is action taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded. It’s an attempt to give historically disenfranchised social groups “equal opportunity.”

THW ban Affirmative Action

This house could be either Federal or state government. There have also been cases of Affirmative action in countries besides the US, but I will focus mostly on US examples. The philosophical arguments for and against go for any country though.

PRO

CON

Affirmative Action promotes racism. Racism,‘a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine.’ When a government shows race to be a deciding factor, whether in negative or affirmative policy making, it further entrenches the idea of race as an inherently differentiating quality. The whole goal of the Civil Rights movement was to create equality, a sense of color-blindness, if you will. What affirmative action does is to essentially tell the group attempting to be affirmed that they cannot do it on their own. This is summed up by Alan Keyes, ““Preferential affirmative action patronizes American blacks, women, and others by presuming that they cannot succeed on their own. Preferential affirmative action does not advance civil rights in this country.”

“In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.”- Harry A. Blackmun

Affirmative action is necessary, because for so long we as a nation mistreated and discriminated against certain groups, such as blacks, Mexicans, women, and Asians, and now because of that fact, they are entrenched in impoverished situations.

Those minority groups are overrepresented in poverty, low education levels, lower paying jobs, and government welfare programs. We are striving for equality, and in order for equality to take place, we must try to level the playing field as much as possible, so every person can begin at the same place.

Affirmative action is leading to less qualified workers gaining positions over more skilled workers.

In a case brought before the Supreme Court of New York, 13 white firefighters were denied promotions they had earned by scoring well on promotional testing, because the City of Buffalo had contested that the testing was prejudicial simply because minorities were not as successful on the exams.

A similar case occurred in New Haven, and Sonia Sotomayor was on the court then, and ruled against the firefighters.

Affirmative action values RACE over CAPABILITY.

The American Association for Affirmative Action Received More Than 90,000 Employment Discrimination Complaints Last Year, clearly showing that we still need affirmative action…. Poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics greatly exceed the national average. In 2009, 25.8 percent of blacks and 25.3 percent of Hispanics were poor, compared to 9.4 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 12.5 percent of Asians. This shows that there is still much that we need to do to level the playing field.

Affirmative action actually works at leveling the playing field. From 1955-1969, there was no growth in the percentage of college students who were black, it stayed a steady 4.9%! Only once Affirmative Action was put into place did we see any substantive percentage increases. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the median black male worker earned only about 60 percent as much as the median white male worker; (10) by 1993, the median black male earned 74 percent as much as the median white male. (11) The male-female wage gap has also narrowed since the 1960s: median female earnings relative to median male earnings rose from about 60 percent during the 1960s to 72 percent in 1993.

Furthermore, Affirmative action actually lowers the standards to the level of the disenfranchised, rather than raise the disenfranchised up to the standards, which is the ultimate goal of affirmative action.

Charles J. Ogletree was a poor black boy, growing up in Merced, CA. His parents were both products of a segregated south, and thus had menial education, but they pushed their son to try as hard as he could to get into college. Charles went to his school counselors, and they suggested Stanford. He worked as hard as he could in school, but still couldn’t reach the level of Standardized testing Stanford required, because his school in Merced was underfunded and had a large number of black students. He was finally able to make it into Stanford because of Affirmative action. Once there, he was able to work hard, and obtain a BA in 3 years, an MA the next year, and go on to get a Law Degree from Harvard. He now teaches at Harvard, and is on the Board of Trustees at Stanford.

Less than 3% of federal contracts go to women-owned firms. In Washington, less than 10% of state contracts and purchasing dollars go to women-owned firms — even though women own 39% of firms.

Maxandfacts

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Affirmative Action

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PRO	CON
Affirmative Action promotes racism. Racism,‘a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine.’ When a government shows race to be a deciding factor, whether in negative or affirmative policy making, it further entrenches the idea of race as an inherently differentiating quality. The whole goal of the Civil Rights movement was to create equality, a sense of color-blindness, if you will. What affirmative action does is to essentially tell the group attempting to be affirmed that they cannot do it on their own. This is summed up by Alan Keyes, ““Preferential affirmative action patronizes American blacks, women, and others by presuming that they cannot succeed on their own. Preferential affirmative action does not advance civil rights in this country.”	“In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.”- Harry A. Blackmun Affirmative action is necessary, because for so long we as a nation mistreated and discriminated against certain groups, such as blacks, Mexicans, women, and Asians, and now because of that fact, they are entrenched in impoverished situations. Those minority groups are overrepresented in poverty, low education levels, lower paying jobs, and government welfare programs. We are striving for equality, and in order for equality to take place, we must try to level the playing field as much as possible, so every person can begin at the same place.
Affirmative action is leading to less qualified workers gaining positions over more skilled workers. In a case brought before the Supreme Court of New York, 13 white firefighters were denied promotions they had earned by scoring well on promotional testing, because the City of Buffalo had contested that the testing was prejudicial simply because minorities were not as successful on the exams. A similar case occurred in New Haven, and Sonia Sotomayor was on the court then, and ruled against the firefighters. Affirmative action values RACE over CAPABILITY.	The American Association for Affirmative Action Received More Than 90,000 Employment Discrimination Complaints Last Year, clearly showing that we still need affirmative action…. Poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics greatly exceed the national average. In 2009, 25.8 percent of blacks and 25.3 percent of Hispanics were poor, compared to 9.4 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 12.5 percent of Asians. This shows that there is still much that we need to do to level the playing field. Affirmative action actually works at leveling the playing field. From 1955-1969, there was no growth in the percentage of college students who were black, it stayed a steady 4.9%! Only once Affirmative Action was put into place did we see any substantive percentage increases. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the median black male worker earned only about 60 percent as much as the median white male worker; (10) by 1993, the median black male earned 74 percent as much as the median white male. (11) The male-female wage gap has also narrowed since the 1960s: median female earnings relative to median male earnings rose from about 60 percent during the 1960s to 72 percent in 1993.
Furthermore, Affirmative action actually lowers the standards to the level of the disenfranchised, rather than raise the disenfranchised up to the standards, which is the ultimate goal of affirmative action.	Charles J. Ogletree was a poor black boy, growing up in Merced, CA. His parents were both products of a segregated south, and thus had menial education, but they pushed their son to try as hard as he could to get into college. Charles went to his school counselors, and they suggested Stanford. He worked as hard as he could in school, but still couldn’t reach the level of Standardized testing Stanford required, because his school in Merced was underfunded and had a large number of black students. He was finally able to make it into Stanford because of Affirmative action. Once there, he was able to work hard, and obtain a BA in 3 years, an MA the next year, and go on to get a Law Degree from Harvard. He now teaches at Harvard, and is on the Board of Trustees at Stanford.
	Less than 3% of federal contracts go to women-owned firms. In Washington, less than 10% of state contracts and purchasing dollars go to women-owned firms — even though women own 39% of firms.