For me, I personally believe that we should change the

affirmative action system. Instead of basing these support

programs on race, I think they should base it off of a
person’s socio economic status.

In terms of college and university admissions. The current

Affirmative action system, today, is a significant
component to the admission process; it opens doors for
those less fortunate and increases diversity on college
campuses. But this is where things get interesting, when
admission standards are considering people mainly on
their race and their schools reputation on diversity, they
very well are disregarding many acceptable candidates
with high test scores and GPA’s.
Just this last October, Abigail Fisher sued the University
of Texas after her application was rejected in 2008 when
she was a high school senior. She claims that the
individualized, discretionary admission policies violated
her rights and favored African American and Hispanic
applicants over whites and Asian Americans. The
University accepts the top 10% for automatic admission
Fisher just missed it by 1% So, she had to compete in a
separate pool where race is a major factor for admission
and the schools reputation as a diverse campus is taken
into big consideration. This case is now in the supreme
court, where the judges are clearly divided on the issue.
Espeacially Justice Sonia Sotomayor who wouldn’t be
 in her place today if it wasn’t for affirmative action.
The verdict is to come in the next couple of months,
while this issue continues to stir throughout America.
I think we will continue to see more cases like this as
more Americans realize we are now discriminating
against whites, therefore I continue to believe that
we should stop basing so much on race and rather
help those in need.
If affirmative action is going to be prevalent in the
admissions practices of publicly funded universities, then
the programs need to shift their focus from race-driven
equality to socioeconomic equality.
I myself as well as most other Americans agree with this
notion. In 2003, a poll, from Newsweek.com found that
65% of people expressed their preference for income-
based affirmative action as opposed to 26% for racial
affirmative action programs. This feeling still holds true
nearly a decade later.
The driving factor behind disparity on college campuses
is no longer race but the socioeconomic status of the
individual. In this day in age, I believe we have moved on
from a racially segregated society, and that everyone
should be given an equal chance at going to college, not
just those underrepresented on the census count. Those
coming from an underprivileged background are less
likely to attend college, let alone succeed. According to
economists Stephen Rose and Anthony Carnevale, "...
students from the lowest socioeconomic quartile of
Americans were 25 times less likely than wealthy
Americans to enroll in the most selective colleges ..."
According to the study, only 3% of college freshman
come from the poorest quartile while the richest make up
74% of the student body.
I don’t believe its fair to give race a boost in admissions,
given these hard economic times, providing assistance to
only a small piece of the pie does little to aid the
underprivileged.
Evidently, in regards to affirmative action today we see
the same trend in the workforce regarding employers and
contractors. Under the current law many large
corporations are required to have a percentage of their
workers in that minority category. Therefore these
contractors and employers typically result into laying off
their own reputable workers, to bring in more of these
minority groups. This law is referred to as the collective
labor and employment law in combination with the
original Civil Rights Act of 1964, and its newer
amendments, the Age Discrimination Act of 1967, the
Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Genetic Information
Nondiscrimination Act of 2008.