Affirmative Action Policies and Issues

Affirmative action is a policy or program that seeks to redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity in education and employment. It attempts to correct any discrimination by increasing the amount of women and minorities in certain positions as it requires employers to become proactive and correct areas of past discrimination. Affirmative action is a very controversial issue and many people do not realize all of the advantages that can come out of it.

By implementing affirmative action policies, you allow a more diverse group of people to be employed. This will break the stereotype that many people have and draw more people then before to your company. It also allows interaction between different races and nationalities for some people who may have never done this before and do nothing but base these people by the stereotypes that they learned. This also allows the company to be able to relate better to their customer's needs. Allowing disadvantaged people an opportunity to reach their maximum potential is strongly needed in the world. Some people may say that by hiring people based on their race or gender will reverse discrimination and make people more biased against one another. You often see on an application a field to write your ethnicity. If, like many people argue, racism is not the case anymore then why would that even be a question? You also occasionally see a box to check male or female. Is this just because the hiring personnel is curious? Probably not. That is clearly not the case; in reality it is just opening up doors for people who never seem to get a chance.

Not only are you giving these people a chance that they never had but you are also teaching them to eliminate discrimination. You are showing others that just because one may be considered a "minority" does not mean that they are not a successful person with goals and dreams just like you and I. This is what helps the world become color-blind to one's race and focus more on one's skills. Without affirmative action, stereotypes may never be broken. Everyone needs a little boost and someone to give them that chance. Affirmative action draws people to areas of work that they may not have ever considered. This expands the opportunity to widen the overall economy.

Many people may think that it is unfair how these people are treated just because they belong to a certain group. Another issue that is often brought up is that people who do not have the qualifications for a position should not have an advantage over those who do. In this matter, it is not that affirmative action policies means that any minority applying for a position should get hired. It simply means that employers should focus on talent, not racial quotas. You do not need to feel obligated hiring a women just because of her sex. If she has experience in open position then why shouldn't she get a chance?

Along with affirmative action comes something many people are familiar with, equal employment opportunity. This is defined as the treatment of individuals in all aspects of employment including hiring, in a nonbiased manner. This means that you provide equal access to all available job opportunities, provide similar benefits to everyone, and do not differentiate applicants based on their race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, marital status, disability, or medical condition.

As you can see, affirmative action and the equal employment opportunity law relate to one another except that affirmative action goes further then the equal employment opportunity law. It requires employers to not only provide the same opportunities to all job applicants but to analyze their workforce and develop a plan to correct the areas of past discrimination. In order to apply the equal employment opportunity law or affirmative action, you must have the other.

You would think that nowadays this would not even be an issue but it is and it is something that needs to continuously be addressed. In order to eliminate discrimination in our country, this is the first step that every company needs to take.

Messerli, J. (2008). Should affirmative action policies, which give preferential treatment based on minority status, be eliminated? Retrieved March 23, 2008, from http://www.balancedpolitics.org/affirmative_action.htm

Spina, P. (2007). Affirmative action & eoe. Retrieved March 23, 2008, from http://www.sunyit.edu/human_resources/affirmative_policy.inc