Get Educated: Affirmative Action

For those people out there who don't know what Affirmative Action really is about and what it does, I am gonna give you a quick lesson. Affirmative Action is taking positive actions to hire and promote qualified persons in protected groups. The protected groups are federally defined as: women, minorities (African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, Arabs), individuals with disabilities, and disabled veterans and/or Vietnam-Era veterans. As you can see from the definition, blacks aren't the only ones who benefit from this. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor found that the group that benefits the most from affirmative action is white women (http://aapf.org/focus/episodes/oct30.php).

Now that we have talked about what Affirmative Action IS, let's talk about what it is NOT. Affirmative Action is not a hand out, it's not preferential treatment, it's not reverse discrimination, and it's not a quota. Affirmative Action is not a hand out because a minority or woman applicant must meet the same requirements as the white male applicant. Affirmative Action does not protect the under qualified. For example, let's say that a 20 year old Latino man was applying for a position as a cop and a 20 year old white man was applying for the same position. The requirements are that you must hold a high school diploma, you must have received at least a 70% on the written test, you must have passed the PT examination, and you must have completed the academy in the top 30% percentile of you class. If the Hispanic man didn't get a 70% on the written test he's out, if he doesn't hold a high school diploma he's not going to get the job, if he failed the PT or didn't graduate in the top 30% of the academy class then he's not going to be hired. The Hispanic man has to meet the same standards as the white candidate

Affirmative Action is not reverse discrimination. As I mentioned earlier, the only group not protected by this is the white male. White men hold 95% of the senior leadership positions in America and are 80% of tenured professors (http://www.southerninstitute.info/civil_rights_education/plessy5.html). Nothing in affirmative action says that an employer can't hire a white man, and as you can see from the statistics, that is not the problem. Affirmative action is not preferential treatment because an employer doesn't have to 'prefer' a minority or woman over hiring a man. He just needs to make an effort to diversify his workplace. This means that if you have a business and there are already 50 white men employees than you need to make an effort to hire some women or minorities. Affirmative Action is not a mandated quota. A school, business, corporation, etc. doesn't have to set aside a certain percent of their openings for minorities; those places do that on their own. That is the way they choose to make an effort to diversify their institution. Affirmative Action doesn't mandate that.

Affirmative Action is a hot topic right now and I hate to hear people talk when they don't know what they're talking about. If you're going to make a statement about something make sure you know what you are saying and please have all your facts straight.