The term affirmative action refers to policies that take race, ethnicity, or sex into consideration in an attempt to promote equal opportunity or increase ethnic or other forms of diversity. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and education to public contracting and health programs. The impetus towards affirmative action is twofold: to maximize diversity in all levels of society, along with its presumed benefits, and to redress perceived disadvantages due to overt, institutional, or involuntary discrimination. Opponents argue that it promotes reverse discrimination.
Affirmative action is also known as positive action or positive discrimination in the UK, reservation in India, and employment equity in Canada.
Support
The principle of affirmative action stipulates – to treat unequals as equals is to perpetuate inequality. Affirmative action is seen by its proponents as a foundational principle of democratic societies such as India, that seek to redress imbalances, due to disproportionate representation of underprivileged sections of society in governmental, educational and industrial institutions. Proponents of affirmative action argue, that the disproportionate representations, results from covert, institutionalized and involuntary forms of discrimination that permeates the fabric of society; particularly in societies that have had a long history of racial, ethnic, or sex based discrimination. Such acts of discrimination may take many forms. Some are overt such as stereotypes (e.g. women are only fit to be secretaries and housewives, and blacks are great entertainers and sportsmen—modern day gladiators but little else). Others are covert, such as "old boys" clubs, that tend to favor racially akin new members.
Most Americans support affirmative action for women; with minorities, it is more split. Men are only slightly more likely to support affirmative action for women; though a majority of both do. However, a slight majority of Americans do believe that affirmative action goes beyond ensuring access and goes into the realm of preferential treatment.
In Ten Myths About Affirmative Action (2003) by Scott Plous, it is argued that critics of affirmative action often rely on misconceptions.
- One cannot hope to create a color blind society by practicing color blind policies since such policies put racial minorities at a disadvantage. For instance color blind seniority systems tend to favor white workers against job layoffs, since senior employees tend to be white. The point being existing imbalances in representation tend to perpetuate themselves in the absence of affirmative action.
- While a few studies claimed that affirmative action undermined the self-esteem of women and minorities, more recent studies and public opinion polls have indicated that such is not that case
- The claim that one cannot redress one form of discrimination by introducing another is a play on words that uses the same word "discrimination" to refer to two different things. Racial, ethnic or sex based discrimination is often based on unfounded, often irrational and deeply ingrained prejudices. Affirmative action is a response to a statistically observed inequity in representation, reproducibly demonstrated by social scientists in many societies with a history of discrimination.
- Some opponents of affirmative action believe the practice implies the preferential selection of unqualified candidates over qualified candidates. But in fact, most supporters of affirmative action oppose such preferential selection and instead prefer preferential selection among equal or comparable candidates.
Opposition
Some opponents say affirmative action devalues the accomplishments of people who are chosen because of the social group to which they belong rather than their qualifications. Opponents also contend that affirmative action devalues the accomplishments of all those who belong to groups it is intended to help, therefore making affirmative action counterproductive.
Some people, such as American Republican Ward Connerly, also feel that affirmative action is discrimination in itself since it judges people by their ethnicity.
Opponents, who sometimes call affirmative action "reverse discrimination," further claim that affirmative action has undesirable side-effects in addition to failing to achieve its goals. They argue that it hinders reconciliation, replaces old wrongs with new wrongs, undermines the achievements of minorities, and encourages individuals to identify themselves as disadvantaged, even if they are not. It may increase racial tension and benefit the more privileged people within minority groups at the expense of the least fortunate within majority groups (such as lower-class whites).
Conservative commentator Dr. Thomas Sowell identified some negative results of race-based affirmative action in his book, Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study . Sowell writes that affirmative action policies encourage non-preferred groups to designate themselves as members of preferred groups (i.e., primary beneficiaries of affirmative action) to take advantage of group preference policies; that they tend to benefit primarily the most fortunate among the preferred group (e.g., upper and middle class blacks), often to the detriment of the least fortunate among the non-preferred groups (e.g., poor whites or Asians); that they reduce the incentives of both the preferred and non-preferred to perform at their best — the former because doing so is unnecessary and the latter because it can prove futile — thereby resulting in net losses for society as a whole; and that they increase animosity toward preferred groups.
International policies
An in-depth examination of the legal status of affirmative action, as well as the different kinds of programs that exist and their pros and cons, can be found in a paper written for the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights by one of its members, Marc Bossuyt.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination stipulates (in Article 2.2) that affirmative action programs may be required of countries that have ratified the convention, in order to rectify systematic discrimination. It states, however, that such programs "shall in no case entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved." The United Nations Human Rights Committee states, "the principle of equality sometimes requires States parties to take affirmative action in order to diminish or eliminate conditions which cause or help to perpetuate discrimination prohibited by the Covenant. For example, in a State where the general conditions of a certain part of the population prevent or impair their enjoyment of human rights, the State should take specific action to correct those conditions. Such action may involve granting for a time to the part of the population concerned certain preferential treatment in specific matters as compared with the rest of the population. However, as long as such action is needed to correct discrimination, in fact, it is a case of legitimate differentiation under the Covenant."
Types
Affirmative action is generally established for:
- racial minorities.
- ethnic minorities.
- underprivileged castes (such as in India).
- women.
- the physically disabled.
- those who served in the military.
Implementation worldwide
In some countries which have laws on racial equality, affirmative action is rendered illegal because it doesn't treat all races equally. This approach of equal treatment is sometimes described as being "color blind", in hopes that it is effective against discrimination without engaging in reverse discrimination.
In such countries, the focus tends to be on ensuring equal opportunity and, for example, targeted advertising campaigns to encourage ethnic minority candidates to join the police force. This is sometimes described as "positive action" or "positive discrimination".
The Americas
- United States. The intended beneficiaries of affirmative action in the United States include historically disadvantaged ethnic minorities, women, people with disabilities, and veterans. Affirmative action has been the subject of numerous court cases, and has been contested on constitutional grounds. In 2003 a Supreme Court decision concerning affirmative action in universities allowed educational institutions to consider race as a factor in admitting students, but ruled that strict point systems are unconstitutional. Conservatives say that state officials have widely disobeyed it. Alternatively, some colleges use financial criteria to attract racial groups that have typically been under represented and typically have lower living conditions. Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 prohibit federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, skin color, religion, gender, or national origin. Some states such as California and Michigan have passed constitutional amendments banning affirmative action within their respective states.
- Brazil. Some Brazilian Universities (State and Federal) have created systems of preferred admissions (quotas) for racial minorities (blacks and native Brazilians), th
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