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Pro Affirmative Action Essay

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Affirmative action is a policy or a program that seeks to redress past discrimination of minorities through active measures in order to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment. In other words, it is policy that was established to hopefully eliminate racial preference and equalize the United States. The fight against discrimination has been a long lasting one that started with the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, which ended in the desegregation of all schools (Ficker). Affirmative action was put into place in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Executive Order that mandated government contractors to “take affirmative action” in all aspects of hiring and employing minorities (Brunner). Upon its arrival, the policy …show more content…

The fact that, in most cases, a minority student will get accepted over a white student with the same or almost the same qualifications is causing controversy all over the nation. This is precisely the definition of affirmative action. In an excerpt titled Affirmative Action and the College Admissions Process from the book, 8 Steps to Help Black Families Pay For College, by Thomas and Will LaVeist, it is stated that, “affirmative action is meant to level the playing field and ensure that schools and businesses are not intentionally discriminating against minority groups.” This leveling of the playing field leads to the very broad generalization and misperception that the policy is allowing less-qualified minorities to take the place of the more-qualified whites. Two more cases that aroused much debate on the issue were the 2003 cases of Gratz vs. Bollinger and Grutter vs. Bollinger, in which two more-than-qualified students applied to the University of Michigan and were denied due to acceptance policies. The two women, Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter, took their cases to the Supreme Court with the plea that the University of Michigan is “treating people differently based on skin color, and that is unconstitutional” (Mears). The university openly stated that they have a point system in their acceptance process in which students receive extra point if they are of minority status. Mary Sue Coleman, the president of the University of Michigan stated, “[W]e

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