The meaning of affirmative action is positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities areas of employment, education, and culture. This is needed because since this country was established the minorities and women have been looked down upon and been at an unfair advantage. The constitution of the United States stated that it was meant for all citizens to be created equally, but we see the government have not abided by those words. Since the times of slavery minorities was not treated as citizens of even people for that matter more like animals. I question if the American system was meant to include minorities when it was written. Slavery has caused the …show more content…
One of the reasons that people will rule affirmative action as impermissible because the government is giving preferential treatment to the underprivileged. Providing the underprivileged with more opportunities will be unfair to others. “Title VI of the civil rights act states that promised that no person shall on the grounds of race, color, or national origin be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal assistance”. This shows that it can be a conflict of interest to allow affirmative action. To promote equally and then give a group of people preferential treatment over another will not mean there is equality. One case where there was a flaw in the affirmative action rights was the 1974 Bakke case where he was denied admission to the University of California Medical School. The medical school had implemented a program that reserved sixteen spots for minorities. Even though Bakke had better scores than most of the minorities he was still denied admission. The Supreme Court ruled for allowing race as a criteria to promote diversity, but was unjustified by focusing race as more important than other ways to diversity the campus(cite). Bakke argued that he was denied admission because of his race because his schools was better than the minorities but he didn’t qualify for their qualification due to being white. Bakke won the case on the terms of being discriminated against. There are other things that can be looked at when a university is trying to be diverse things like personal characteristics and ethnic background. Looking to be diverse with different aspects will help a university or workplace to not be called out for racism, sexism, ageism, etc. This is a better way of trying to get a better representation of minorities in colleges and the