Background

• Established by President Kennedy on 6 March 1961 by executive order, the goal was to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin" (Source: EEOC). The term has come to refer to preferential treatment of disadvantaged minorities rather than blindness to their characteristics.
• Modern affirmative action was born in 1965 with President Johnson's enactment of Executive Order 11246, which requires government contractors to have a detailed program for equal opportunity policies and recruitment.

Debate

• Proponents, however, see it as a necessary policy in order to undo the negative policies once imposed on disadvantaged minorities.

• Opponents of affirmative action point to its supposed 'reverse discrimination' and its preferential treatment of lesser qualified individuals over more qualified ones based solely on race, gender, or physical condition.

Country Comparison

• Global
  
  • The term 'affirmative action' may be a US invention, but the general policy is familiar around the world. In India, it is known as "reservations", and attempts to undue the harmful ramifications of the caste system. In Canada, aboriginals are given a special preference for education and jobs. In the US, the intended beneficiaries of affirmative action are disadvantaged ethnic minorities, women, people with disabilities and veterans.

Recent Developments

• In 1997 California enacted Proposition 209 which essentially banned the use of affirmative action in the public sphere.
• The Supreme Court, in a 2003 decision, upheld the 1978 Bakke ruling that race can be a factor in university admissions, though the use of a quota system was unconstitutional.
• In June 2007, a bitterly divided Supreme Court ruled in the landmark cases of Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 that race cannot be a factor in the assignment of children to public schools. Critics of this ruling claim that diversity is an important element in children growing up to be capable adults and that the change will return America to the policy adopted after the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that "Separate but Equal" was constitutional.

Additional Information