Origins and Methods of Implementation
– Term ‘affirmative action’ first used in the United States in Executive Order No. 10925, signed by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.
– Executive Order 11246 issued by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 required government employers to hire without regard to race, religion, and national origin.
– Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
– No law explicitly permitted discrimination in favor of disadvantaged groups, but affirmative action eventually became synonymous with preferences, goals, and quotas.
– Affirmative action intended to alleviate under-representation and promote equal access for defined minority groups.
– Methods of implementation include quotas, marketing/advertising to targeted groups, specific training or emulation actions for identified audiences, relaxation of selection criteria for target audiences, and use of preferential treatment or special consideration in selection processes.
Impact on Women
– Affirmative action had a positive effect on advancing black, Hispanic, and white women into management, professional, and technical occupations during the 1970s and early 1980s.
– Contractors experienced faster growth in the shares of these groups due to affirmative action implementation.
– The positive effect of affirmative action on women diminished in the late 1980s.
– Becoming a federal contractor increased white women’s share of professional occupations by 0.183 percentage points, or 9.3 percent, on average.
– Becoming a federal contractor increased black women’s share of professional occupations by 0.052 percentage points, or 3.9 percent.
Supporters’ Arguments
– Affirmative action promotes equality and representation for socio-economically disadvantaged groups.
– It addresses historical discrimination and oppression.
– It aims to bridge inequalities in employment and pay.
– It increases access to education.
– It promotes diversity and redresses wrongs, harms, or hindrances.
Opponents’ Arguments
– Affirmative action is a form of reverse discrimination.
– It benefits the most privileged within minority groups at the expense of the least fortunate within majority groups.
– It can hinder minority students by placing them in unprepared courses.
– Affirmative action was ruled unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in the case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
– The ruling does not apply to U.S. military academies and allows consideration of race in the context of an applicant’s character or unique ability.
International Approaches
– Law regarding quotas and affirmative action varies widely from nation to nation.
– Some countries focus on equal treatment and ensuring equal opportunity, while others use targeted advertising campaigns and positive action.
– Examples include South Africa’s Employment Equity Act and Black Economic Empowerment Act, China’s affirmative action in education, Israel’s class-based affirmative action policy, India’s reservation policy, and Malaysia’s ethnicity-based affirmative action policy. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action
Affirmative action, also known as positive action or positive discrimination (British English), involves sets of policies and practices within a government or organization seeking to benefit particular groups that were historically discriminated against in areas in which such groups are underrepresented, mistreated or suffer from lack of public support—such as education and employment. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing wrongs, harms, or hindrances.
The nature of affirmative-action policies varies from region to region and exists on a spectrum from a hard quota to merely targeting encouragement for increased participation. Some countries use a quota system, reserving a certain percentage of government jobs, political positions, and school vacancies for members of a certain group; an example of this is the reservation system in India.
In some other jurisdictions where quotas are not used, minority-group members are given preference or special consideration in selection processes. In the United States, affirmative action by executive order originally meant selection without regard to race but preferential treatment was widely used in college admissions, as upheld in the 2003 Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, until 2023, when this was overturned in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
A variation of affirmative action more common in Europe is known as positive action, wherein equal opportunity is promoted by encouraging underrepresented groups into a field. This is often described as being "color blind", but some American sociologists have argued that this is insufficient.
In the United States, affirmative action is controversial and public opinion on the subject is divided. Supporters of affirmative action argue that it promotes equality and representation for groups which are socio-economically disadvantaged or have faced historical discrimination or oppression. Opponents of affirmative action have argued that it is a form of reverse discrimination, that it tends to benefit the most privileged within minority groups at the expense of the least fortunate within majority groups, or that—when applied to universities—it can hinder minority students by placing them in courses for which they have not been adequately prepared.
In June 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States decided a landmark case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, holding race-conscious college admissions processes to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The ruling does not explicitly apply to U.S. military academies, and it allows for students' discussion of race to continue to be considered in the context of "how race affected the applicant's life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university."
