We have already taken a look at the history behind affirmative action, and we have seen the case that is currently being decided on by the Supreme Court. We know that affirmative action was started because it was necessary to balance out racial prejudices in the workplace and in college admissions. Affirmative Action policies have not changed since. College admissions affirmative action was challenged about a decade ago and is being challenged again. Both sides of the affirmative action argument have valid points at the surface, but if we look deep into the issue, and think about the long term future of this country, it is clear that affirmative action’s time is up and it should be made illegal.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” This is the exact opposite of affirmative action. Many schools will say that race is only a minor factor in admissions, but the fact of the matter is that to some extent, no matter how small, college applicants are being admitted or denied opportunity based on the color of their skin. Shouldn’t we be judging people by their character instead? Isn’t that what Martin Luther King Jr. wanted?
I understand the fears of those who are for affirmative action. Many people believe that if you do not have a certain number of each racial group identified in an academic setting (called a “critical mass”) then the one racial group will feel ostracized and will not express their opinions in the academic setting. But don’t we want a future in which people’s opinions are not defined by their skin color? The whole goal of the racial equality movement is to bring a day upon the United States in which people are seen by others as individuals, and not as a White guy, a Black girl or Asian guy. Yet isn’t this what affirmative action does? Doesn’t affirmative action define someone by their skin color rather than his or her character and individuality? Affirmative action only perpetuates the racism that it claims to try to prevent. If you want a racial minority to feel confident enough that he or she is not an outcast, then stop making the racial distinctions in the admissions process that defined him or her as an outcast. If we truly want a future in which everyone is seen as racial equals, as a unified academic body, then we need to stop defining how many people of each race is required in an academic setting.
Simply stated, I am saying that the problem of racial inequality is not going to be solved by affirmative action, rather inhibited. I am NOT saying that killing affirmative action will solve the racial inequality problem in the U.S. I argue that the problem is that in our country’s attempt to be fair to all the races, we have had to make distinctions between the races that have ended up dividing people rather than unifying them. It is a huge contradiction to say that we want a racially fair and unified academic body for a college, and then distinguish one race from another in admissions. If the future of this country is the need to see every skin color in the same light, then we need to actually try to see every skin color in the same light. Affirmative action is past its time. Affirmative action is unconstitutional and does not solve racial inequality issues. Affirmative action is a policy that attempts to counter racism by promoting racial inequality. True racial equality comes in the form of color-blindness where every college applicant is judged by their character, and not their race.
Sources:
News.yahoo.com
Huffington post
Law.Cornell.edu