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Essay on Affirmative Action
Affirmative action” means positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded. When those steps involve preferentialselection—selection on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity—affirmative action generates intense controversy.
Positive aspects of affirmative action
Institutions with affirmative action policies generally set goals for increased diversity and equal opportunity among minority students. Our society is not one of equality, but affirmative action provides a way that problems with inequality can be address to the public. Minorities such as African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics live mostly in urban areas that have large populations. Therefore, many minorities normally attend lower quality schools.
Colleges usually do not take into account that students come from different backgrounds and different quality schools. The students that have better intermediate and secondary schools have an advantage in college admissions, which exclude many minorities. Affirmative action helps students who come from a lower quality secondary school to have a chance to prove themselves in accredited college.Another advantage of affirmative action is that it provides an environment of diversity. Diversity is essential to colleges and students. As part of higher education, students learn from face-to-face interaction with faculty member and other students to work productively inside and outside the classroom. Racial diversity can enhance college atmosphere by improving communications. It can also develop understanding among individuals of different races.
Let me mention here the two cases of 2003 Supreme Court. One is Grutter v. Bollinger: the case that originated in 1996 when Barbara Grutter, a white Michigan resident with a 3.8 GPA and 161 LSAT score, was rejected by the University of Michigan Law School. She filed suit in December 1997, alleging that the university had discriminated against her on the basis of race......
