Affirmative Action in College

Affirmative Action

Affirmative action is essential to the consideration of the college acceptance process. Without it, applications received from minorities and enrollment drop significantly. Since California eliminated affirmative action in 1996, the number of minority students admitted to the University of California-Berkeley Boalt Hall of Law dropped 66 percent from 162 to 55 in 1997, only one year. (www.princeton.edu) A decrease like this is detrimental because not only is it unfair to minorities who have experienced greater disadvantages than white students, but our society would suffer because a lack of diversity leads to a lack in progress.

The governor of California in 1996, Pete Wilson said after signing an executive order to eliminate affirmative action in his state, “What we owe the people is to fix what is wrong, to cure the unfairness and to set it right.” (Chang, 18) He was implying that affirmative action was an unfair process. What Mr. Wilson gets wrong is that affirmative action was implemented in 1963 for the exact same reasons he wants to abolish it. It was an effort to right the wrongs of past injustices that favored white men.

Affirmative action is a type of compensatory justice that is needed to neutralize the competitive disadvantages that minorities continue to experience today because of past discriminations. Nobody can argue that minorities and African Americans particularly, have been treated unfairly over the course of U.S. history. Their education

growth had been suppressed as well as their civil rights for centuries. Although the civil rights movement had ended decades ago, the effects can still be felt today. Because

of this, minorities still need additional help. As President Lyndon B. Johnson said after signing the Voting Rights Act in 1964, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race, and then say ‘You are free to compete…’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.” (Chang, 42)

Minority students start at a disadvantage and need a boost. Minorities generally come from low income homes in high crime, drug infested areas. Studies show that children from these areas generally perform poorly on standardized testing. In 2000, the median SAT score for minorities was 833, while non-minorities scored an average of 946. (Flowers, 98) These disadvantages leave minorities fewer opportunities to pursue higher learning. This does not mean that they are not capable of performing just as well as a white student. It does mean that they may not have the same qualifications when the time comes to apply for college. Affirmative action helps ease this discrepancy and bring more minorities to the playing field.

Also, affirmative action draws minorities to areas of study they may not have considered otherwise. For example, when affirmative action is implemented, there is greater enrollment of minorities into prestigious law and medical schools. (Wise, 142) When a greater amount of minorities becoming lawyers or doctors, it helps eliminate stereotypes. When these stereotypes are eliminated than we will lessen the need for affirmative action in the future.

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