Affirmative Action Affirmative action has been at the center of many debates for roughly the past fifty years. “Affirmative action is defined as an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women” (Merriam-Webster). Affirmative action was originally created to ensure that hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias. In 1961, President Kennedy became the first to use the term "affirmative action" in Executive Order 10925 to ensure that government contractors "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." Many people believe that affirmative action
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Back in the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood the vulnerability of today's affirmative action. “Many white workers whose economic condition is not too far removed from the economic condition of his black brother will find it difficult to accept,” he wrote. “Special consideration to the negro in the context of unemployment, joblessness, etc. does not take into sufficient account their plight (that of the white worker).”( Leonhardt) Affirmative action actually suggests that minorities are inferior to whites. Because all the employees and students know that their school or company has to hire more minorities for legal purposes, non whites that are hired due to affirmative аction may be seen as less qualified by their white coworkers, even if the minority is actually just as qualified as a white worker, or even more so.
Thus, with affirmative action simplistically tied to a basic racial diversity program, it finds itself in retreat. Affirmative action supporters need not despair, they can still revert back to the ideas of Martin Luther King and support equality and fairness for all people of all ethnic
Back in the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood the vulnerability of today's affirmative action. “Many white workers whose economic condition is not too far removed from the economic condition of his black brother will find it difficult to accept,” he wrote. “Special consideration to the negro in the context of unemployment, joblessness, etc. does not take into sufficient account their plight (that of the white worker).”( Leonhardt) Affirmative action actually suggests that minorities are inferior to whites. Because all the employees and students know that their school or company has to hire more minorities for legal purposes, non whites that are hired due to affirmative аction may be seen as less qualified by their white coworkers, even if the minority is actually just as qualified as a white worker, or even more so.
Thus, with affirmative action simplistically tied to a basic racial diversity program, it finds itself in retreat. Affirmative action supporters need not despair, they can still revert back to the ideas of Martin Luther King and support equality and fairness for all people of all ethnic