Affirmative Action, Malcolm X: A Life Of Reinvention?

Affirmative action is a policy favoring people who tend to suffer from discrimination, especially in relation to employment or education; affirmative action is considered positive discrimination. Nicolaus Mills wrote this article Rethinking affirmative action after analyzing Columbia University’s professor Manning Marable 's biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. In the biography, Marable examines the late Malcolm X ideas, theories, and ideologies in many different aspects in which Mills was intrigued. Giving him an abundant amount of knowledge to write this article. Rethinking Affirmative Action focuses on many main points of affirmative action, it elaborates on the use of affirmative action in college admissions, who actually benefits …show more content…
He presents both sides but does not represent them fairly and evenly; by using compare and contrast and cause and effect logic. Nicolaus Mills uses cause and effect examples throughout the whole article to prove his point that there are an affirmative action crisis and his theory to solve the crisis is, in fact, doable. The cause and effect examples that Mills uses allows the audience to understand the ideas and facts that he used to help him formulate his theory that there is an affirmative action crisis in higher education. He talks about the negative appeal that society has about affirmative action and why the crisis is still in full force. He states that “this negative view of affirmative action can be explained that affirmative action has gone beyond the “plus” factor in college admissions.” Affirmative action was originally intended for families who were victimized from slavery and Jim Crow laws in the South. College admissions advisor no longer base their affirmative action givens on the Jim Crow laws which ended in 1965. They base their givens now on race and ethnicity and which being the minority comes into place. However, the process of affirmative action in higher education has been given to people whom families were not discriminated against by society and can damn near pay for college. Nicolaus Mills’ research on who benefits from affirmative action of which compares and contrast Harvard University studies. Mills finding displays that Harvard’s African American alumni that only about a third of Harvard’s African American students were from families in which all four grandparents were born in America and have descendants of slaves. However, other studies have shown that Harvard is not unique in the preferences of giving African-American immigrants or children of African American immigrants a chance at their Ivy League school .Mills using compare