Alana Martinez

Period: 5
March 4th, 2016
Ms. Fine

Affirmative Action: Improvement or Retrogress of Equality?

When there is a discussion about minorities there is the need to acknowledge that the
discrimination that once raised over many in the past, should stay there, to never be brought up
again. To obtain different results there should be different actions taken, with the same ones there
is only one outcome, which is repeating the same mistakes. Something alike happens when there
is a discussion about Affirmative action. Affirmative action is a group of policies that were
created with the ideal of helping minorities to get equal opportunities, with some extra help. To
help create equality, the groups that were once historically excluded are placed onto a higher step
of a stair where the rest of the population is below the minorities. Although proponents of
affirmative action believe in righting the wrongs of history, the policy is unconstitutional and it
became immoral.
Affirmative Action can be seen as unconstitutional because it violates the 14th Amendment of
the U.S. Constitution because it gives more rights to minorities. "...No state shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United
States..." (U.S). This policy cuts the privilege of an individual when it decides that having a
person from a minority group is better than any other person from the rest of the population, just
to say there is diversity and therefore equality in a certain group where the policies are being
applied. Affirmative Action gives minorities the possibility of having a bigger chance to obtain a
position for a job or to get admitted in a school by just the fact of being part of the minorities.
This was seen in a case in Texas where the University of Texas was sued by Abigail Fisher,
"[The] petitioner, who is Caucasian, was rejected for admission to the University's 2008 entering
class. She sued the University and school officials, alleging that the University's consideration of
race in admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause" (Fisher). She sued the university
alleging that the actions taken violated the 14th Amendment by denying her application. The
university uses a ten percent program that has boosted up the racial diversity in the university,
...the Top Ten Percent Law grants automatic admission to any public state college, including the
University, to all students in the top 10% of their class at high schools in Texas that comply with
certain standards (Fisher). The petitioner though was not part of this program so she had to
applied like everyone else and her admission was denied, this is important is because race is one
of the factors considered in the application of the individuals, and as a consequence it violates
the 14th Amendment.
Affirmative action policies are not taking the minorities and placing them as equals, on the
contrary they are placing them as more than the rest. This actions can be considered immoral
because the government that created the policies, are giving extra opportunities to the minorities
to obtain the same position as the average individual, who gets the same opportunity by himself
and without the help of Affirmative Action, only because they are minorities and they can be
used to give a better image to the society, that a group is diverse. ...The most controversial part
of these programs is their use of quotasminimum levels of required minority participation
(Affirmative). The system that Affirmative Action uses known as quotas, takes a spot for
whoever is capable of performing the job or the admission of a school, to be filled by an
individual of the excluded or unrepresented groups, this individuals can or cannot have the
qualities to do properly on the position, because again they are participating because of their race
and not their abilities to perform. ...among these the ideas of diversity and representation and
that quotas are more important than competency" (Kaufman). The use of this quotas can
represent a limit to the levels of diversity in a group, they [the quotas] can set lower expectations
to the individuals in the group and instead of promoting an idea to do better, the bar of
expectations can be set to a certain level where competition is not necessary anymore, because
now every individual of the minorities can get opportunities easier than ever and they do not
have to strive for this.
Throughout history, minorities have been seen as different, sometimes less than the majority of
the population in the country. As a consequence, now, on the present there is the need to give this
groups back better opportunities because they have suffered so much for no reason, an example
of this can be when the minorities confronted problems as: not being able to work in a certain
position or go to the school they wanted. This happened with woman, african americans,
immigrants and even with some believers of distinct religions, "Although white women generally
did not face legal barriers such as the Jim Crow laws, they, too, faced discrimination in many
areas of life. Other minoritiesincluding the Irish, Italians, Mormons, Jews, and homosexuals
encountered similar difficulties" ("Affirmative Action"). This is because society feels the need of
fixing the mistakes that were once committed against them and the fairest way to repay this debt
that exists with them is to offer them a chance to do better. So now this undefined groups can get
into better schools or jobs, that before they may have not even being considered to fit the
standards for the opportunities.
Even though Affirmative action's purpose is to create equality and right the wrongs that were
once committed, this idea is not getting accomplished because instead of helping equality, it is
causing reverse discrimination. By this, it is taking the average individual and the minorities,
placing the second one into a higher level - in aspects as how good it would look in a group and
not in how much this individual can help, to obtain the same results the average individual is
supposed to get without any kind of help, ...it is the policy under which whites are now
frequently turned down: for admission to public colleges and universities in favor of applicants
of other races or ethnic origins who scored lower on their SATs; for employment on police forces
and in fire departments, as well as many other kinds of public jobs, despite higher qualifications;
and as bidders for public contracts, even though their bids are lowest." (Rusher). Yes, mistakes
have been committed throughout history but these were mistakes that lead into todays society, a
society that expects that by doing the same process would obtain different results. Every
individual has their own qualities and then, this program should base their judgment to place
each individual based into an opportunity based on that, their qualities and defects , instead of the
color of their skin or their sex. "If the premise behind the concept is to create a more even
playing field, then I don't think that it should be limited to minorities." (Ambrosio). If there is a
wish of change and have equality, then all must be at the same level to move forward as one and
not as little parts trying to reach a proposition that can never be done that way.
Affirmative action policies should be abolished because more than helping is just making the
situation worse while trying to disguised by giving a small portion of the big picture to help a
little part of the population instead of all the population. There should be the possibility for all to
participate in the same opportunities, as equals and not to be judged by what others may see
instead of knowing what each is capable of doing. Affirmative Action policies has delayed the
extension of their policies by giving more to a certain group and preoccupate of filling a quota,
instead of taking opportunities equally to everybody, to fit each individual in what they can do
better and not classify each into groups. Society would move forward when everybody is at the
same level.