Affirmative Action: The best way to solve the dilemma

Essay by kingtim12314University, Bachelor'sB+, May 2009

download word file, 4 pages 5.0

The best affirmative actionThe term affirmative action refers to policies that take race, gender, or ethnicity into account in an attempt to promote equal opportunity. Many politicians have been vehemently pondering the affirmative action dilemma since its inception by late president John Kennedy, and no one has found a clear-cut resolution. Whenever advocates and opponents debate the issue they eventually launch into a polemic that when analyzed seems to be tenable on both sides of the table. The policy is still very volatile and just recently Mr. Powers, the president of the University of Texas at Austin (U of T), urged lawmakers to change a law that states if a person graduates in the top 10% of his/her class, then that student will be guaranteed admission to any state university, because in the long run it will decrease minorities in U of T-this plea is a form of affirmative action.

This example and countless others occur regularly all over the country in which states constantly change their policies toward it. Some states such as California have abandoned it while others have embraced it with open arms.

It is a serious problem because it has been going on unresolved for decades without anyone addressing it and proposing a proper solution. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction: affirmative action has been met with slander and disparage by intellectuals who have justified there stance. They accuse it of creating reverse discrimination, unjustifiably helping women as being unethical because it rewards people according to their race or gender instead of merit, as being potentially unbeneficial for minorities and no longer necessary.

Gender problems have been around since the earliest times and sexism lurks through all levels of the socioeconomic corporations. Even if women receive the same education, work hard and...