Should Afirmative Action Be Continued

Some would posit that Affirmative Action programs have served minorities well, however, they should now be discontinued. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

I would agree with the statement that Affirmative Action programs should be discontinued. I believe that Affirmative Action is unfair and outdated and creates reverse discrimination in the workforce. In the text Affirmative Action is defined as 'an organization's active effort to find opportunities to hire or promote people in a particular group. ' Typically this results in organizations having to hire a certain percentage of genders and races to make up their work force. While I do believe that there was a time 40 years ago that this was needed to allow minorities to be represented in the job market, I believe that the time for affirmative action has passed and it is no longer needed in the United States. I would argue that this program now creates reverse racism as it gives preference to minorities, instead of hiring the most qualified worker.

To point out an excellent example of this, with one of my previous employers (Nelnet) there were job openings that would arise and before the hiring process began the HR department would know what gender or race they would prefer to hire for the position. This would give an unfair advantage to those of that race or gender in competing for the job. Further with current employer (The State of Nebraska) there are work contracts that are set aside for certain groups, essentially these would be construction contracts or cleaning contracts for minority or women owned companies also these were meant to favor certain groups of races or genders. This is reverse racism as the white male owned company may provide a better service for a lower price but will not even be considered for these contracts based soley on skin color.

To further understand why I believe affirmative action programs are no longer relevant take for example the process of applying to colleges. In these situations underrepresented minorities will often receive extra points on their admissions applications, again giving an unfair advantage to non-white applicants (for no other reason than the color of their skin). In this situation it will not result in the best student getting in to college, it will result in the right ethnic background getting into college. In this same regard when the student of an ethnic minority works hard and gets into the college they must repeatedly get asked the question: "did they do this on was it a result of affirmative action?" In this sense their accomplishments of hard work and dedication are being devalued by affirmative action.

Perhaps the best way to sum up is a to quote Ward Connerly who is the University of California regent and chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, who has stated "the seeds of division are planted not by those of us who seek to eliminate