This consists of preferential access to education, employment, health care, or social welfare (Harper & Reskin, 2005). The people who are the ones that have the burden of defining Affirmative Action are the ones who must comply with it and they are the local, state, and federal governments. Some of the ways that these institutions have to comply with the policy are court-ordered “quotas” (Harper & Reskin, 2005).
These are certain numbers of minorities that have to be hired to somehow remedy past discrimination. Non-construction companies who employ more than fifty people are required by the executive order to institute some sort of affirmative action program (US Department of Labor, 2002).
I cannot help but wonder that I may have been a victim of affirmative action. When I graduated high school, I got a twenty on my ACT's and finished with a 3.6 GPA. Therefore I am more qualified than any to have been admitted into UNL, but I was not. There are two ways that I am against affirmative action. One way is that in twenty-five years, it has not done anything to end discrimination so it must be time to try something else because it is not working (Stanford Magazine, 1994).
There is also the notion that affirmative action forces people to be judged solely on the color or their skin and not for their qualifications and experience they may have for certain jobs and positions in society (Pojman, 1997).
This policy has done nothing but strengthen discriminatory acts and put race and ethnicity ahead of everything else.
