Affirmative Action

While most may agree that a diverse collection of students makes for an interesting and unique learning environment for an academic institution, should students with a minority ethnicity really be given special privileges during the admissions process, based on their race alone? Or should hard work and merits be the only factor upon which students are judged?

In the words of John Wallace, “The United States of America has been known as a country of rugged individualism based on individual freedom and liberty. Why has America become a country obsessed with classifying its citizens into different racial and ethnic sub-groups?” In a country where it has become offensive to ask people about their sexual orientation or religion, why is it so acceptable for applications to ask of peoples’ ethnicity? If we lived in a world where race no longer coincided with one’s worthiness or acceptability, we would be forced to concentrate solely on one’s achievement, intelligence and skill. Somehow, this concentration is viewed as a hindrance to achieving a society of “equal opportunity” for all. Rather than creating an assimilated civilization where no discrimination or biases exist, we are creating the exact opposite by our own government’s intervention in social issues.

It’s not just the “privileged white male” who is negatively affected by the affirmative action policies; prominent minority members who attain their success by hard work and ambition are being demeaned by this program. People may wonder whether they attained success through their own merits, or whether the government held their hand and pushed through the crowd of “average Americans.” In effect, minorities must work twice as hard to earn their respect when affirmative action is supposedly enforced to facilitate their career and educational experiences and place them on a level parallel to the remaining population.

At the opposite end of this idea, minorities may take advantage of these affirmative action policies and realize that they, in fact, do not have to work as hard as Caucasian students to be accepted into the university they want to attend or the job they wish to be hired for. If an African-American student can get into Harvard with a 3.5 while the competing Caucasian student is turned away with a 4.0, why would the minority student venture to work harder? A school may as well cut to the chase and simply state that white males need not apply on the application. Affirmative action lowers standards of accountability that are needed to motivate students or employees to work harder and perform better. We should reward ambition, hard work and discipline, not give applicants “bonus points” because they were born with an alternative skin color, and in effect, punish those who weren’t.

Purdue University’s Affirmative Action Plan explicitly defines discrimination as the “process of illegally differentiating between people on the basis of group membership rather than individual merit.” Page 9, Section B of Purdue’s plan explains their goals in the application process: “This process requires an analysis of the present quantity and quality of employment of women and minorities within the University to determine if there are areas where the number of incumbent women and minorities is less when compared to the number that would be reasonably expected of women and minority employment candidates available in the recruitment area. If it is found that the number of women and minorities employed at the University is less than the expected availability in the relevant labor market, the University must use its best efforts, in good faith, to develop and implement procedures that are designed to increase the number of qualified women and minority candidates in the applicant pool, which will lead to the establishment of placement goals for women and minorities in areas where they are needed.”

What really makes this process bewildering is the very next sentence which states, “A complete affirmative action program also includes mechanisms that enable the University to continually monitor and evaluate its employment practices to ensure that they are free of bias and discrimination based on race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin, ancestry, disability, or veteran status.” Basically, the university wants to be free of bias and racism, so they adopt an affirmative action program that forces Purdue to make decisions based on race. Wow. Talk about contradiction. Implementing these standards may, in some ways, prevent institutional chauvinism; but it does nothing to prevent discrimination towards race, ethnicity, or gender. In many ways, it encourages prejudice in the attempt to eliminate it.

While affirmative action was originated to give minorities a “boost” onto the level of the “privileged” society, it essentially does the opposite. We are putting these minorities in a position where they are further discriminated against because of their advantages, creating a reverse discriminatory society. Affirmative action programs are condescendingly treating Asians, African-Americans, Native Americans and women as if they must need special treatment to succeed in their educational environments and careers. By lowering the standards for hiring or admission, we are essentially saying “You’re not good enough to make it on your own, so let me help you.” Regardless of what Purdue or any other institution believes to be ethical, this provided “help” is not beneficial for whites, minorities or society as a whole.

While affirmative action may be a very noble and well-intentioned cause, it creates much debate and controversy for a reason. This program seeks to correct the wrongs committed against minority groups throughout history and ignite the economic and social advancement by requiring institutions to admit a more diverse group of employees or students. As righteous as it may seem, this program essentially does nothing to reward hard work and motivation; it singles out a group of people to reward for unqualified reasons and tells them they are unfit to make it on their own, so they need affirmative action to get ahead in life. While the government enforces these policies to bring people of all races together; they are actively forcing society in opposite directions. Our “one nation under God” is no longer “indivisible” for we are slowly becoming much more divided in the attempt to equalize citizens. Discrimination is discrimination, no matter what the intention.