Abuse of Affirmative Action in Educational Institutions

For years prejudice and racial bias have favored white people, affirmative action is a way to give to those people that has been oppressed and prejudiced against, however it can also be used as a system to keep benefiting white people, in this essay will be discussing affirmative action is policy that helps and gives back opportunities to communities that has been oppressed like the African American community but also how universities have been using Affirmative Action method as a way to reach a racial quota instead of a way of reparations for the black community. Many articles have talked about how affirmative action is about reparations than diversity, is a policy that will help benefit other groups of people. “Affirmative action was an attempt to bring equity and equal opportunity to the admissions process.” (Webster, Aug, 2017)

America has been built on the hard-work of Africans Americans yet they have been denied the benefit of their hard-work as such have our new generations go to college and graduate. Affirmative action allows the years of oppression and systematically racism give new opportunity to succeed since this country was built to benefit white man this finally allows to give the chance for African-Americans to have one opportunity to have the American dream or even succeed. African-Americans built their own community of advancement but were required by law to pay taxes that helped the growth for the very same whites who denied them equal treatment. The University of North Carolina is the state’s most prestigious taxpayer-funded university, and it did not allow its first black students in until 1955, this Affirmative action is a direct growth of our nation's long and unhappy history of moving away from slavery and toward the goal of racial equality. Because of the continuing impact of our unspoken idea of the racial superiority of whites and the racial inferiority of persons with darker skin color. Although it makes us uncomfortable to talk about, American beliefs of racial inferiority still present in our society today.

The opposing argument it argues that Affirmative Action should is unconstitutional because it violates the 14th amendment, students for fair admissions v. Harvard, is based on the fact that Harvard has been personally selecting their students so they weren't Asian, or Asian-American. After Harvard admitting that they discriminate against Asians in their admission process, the students filed a lawsuit. Even though this court case does not exactly relate to affirmative action, it does argue that Harvard admission process is unconstitutional and people argue that affirmative action is also unconstitutional. An article explained how affirmative action as a way of paying for reparations is unconstitutional: “There are a lot of objections that can be raised to reparations, starting with the price that can be more than trillions of dollars. Slavery is America’s sin, but the actual victims are now dead and cannot be given recompense. Their descendants still live, of course, but how do you justify taking money to pay them from the descendants of immigrants who arrived long after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery? And how do you identify who exactly is entitled to payment, especially given the later influx of immigration from Africa and the Caribbean?” (McDarcle, Feb 26. 2019) The 14th amendment. Opponents of affirmative action believe the policy is outdated and no longer necessary, and that it leads to reverse discrimination by disadvantaging majority groups, like white students, either by admitting minority applicants over white ones who are more qualified, or by prioritizing minority applicants over white applicants who are otherwise on a level playing field. “That is, if there are two students with equal qualifications and one happens to be African American and one happens to be Caucasian, that the African American will have an advantage over the Caucasian,” Cookson says. “There isn’t really much evidence of this, but that’s the argument that’s made.”

“President John F. Kennedy's Executive Order (E.O.) 10925 used affirmative action for the first time by instructing federal contractors to take 'affirmative action to ensure that applicants are treated equally without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.'(Martinez, 2014) That was the first time Affirmative action was officially publicly known as a way to treat everyone equal, but it all dates back to slavery, there’s no way for everyone to be treated equally in today climax. Affirmative action has been used for different purposes from job hiring to college admissions, court cases that date back to segregation and how is still important today like, Brown v. Board of education arguing “separate but equal schools” which has completely changed the way the system is from that court case on. Ever since Jim Crow laws “separate but equal” has allowed unequal system that excludes African Americans from opportunities such as education. This court case has proven that separate in not equal, because there is no reason to be separated if we are all “equal”. “Does this court case violate the 14th amendment?” is the main question for this court case. As a conclusion, the “The Court reasoned that the segregation of public education based on race instilled a sense of inferiority that had a hugely detrimental effect on the education and personal growth of African American children.”

In conclusion, racial bias will always exist; affirmative action is just a way of helping the community that has being less favored just as the book The Color of Law. It explains how after the civil war practices such as Fair Employment Law was created in 1942 but was not enforced until 1955, and it was poorly enforced. “Affirmative action programs are reasonable ways to address the legacy of state sponsored segregation African-Americans who is opportunity have been limited because of their families are locked in ghettos should be giving some compensation in the form of the access to jobs in educations that their forebears were the denied.” (Rothstein, 226)