Workplace Dilemmas: Equal Opportunity And Affirmative Action

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The history of the American workplace has been tumultuous plagued with many issues all stemming from personnel differences. Throughout our history the American people have implored for equality in hiring, workload, work environment and career paths. The American government has attempted to answer the pleads by passing many laws and starting initiatives to better the workplace for all Americans regardless of Race, Gender, National Origin, Religion, Disability and Age. Two initiatives I will be exploring are Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action.
Equal Opportunity Equal Opportunity started to make waves in 1961 as an executive order from President John F. Kennedy. In his order he indicated that federal contractors take “affirmative action to ensure that applicants are treated equally without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” (Equal Opportunity Timeline) Since 1961 there have been many changes to the laws and the initiative however at its core it is still the same provide everyone with equal opportunities to everyone. Hence, you might be thinking are we in the twenty-first century? Isn’t this a thing of the past? However, still to this day we are plagued with blatant disparities amongst Age groups, race groups and gender groups. For example the wage gap between men and women, according to Catherine Hill with the AAUW in 2014 there was a wage gap of 21% between men and women. The problem gets worse depending on the state you reside for example in the state of Louisiana, the state with the highest wage gap, there is a 31% gap. If you happen to be a minority woman, well you will have a harder time earning a wage that is equal to both men of your race and white men. According to Hill (2015), Latina women only make 89% of what Latino men make and only 54% of what white men make. If you are an African American woman you will make 90% of what an African American man and only 63% of what a white man will make. This illustrates just one facet of the bigger issue we face in the American workplace. The next question you might be asking yourself is: these initiatives have been around for a long time, why is the problem not fixed and how can we fix it? The answer is a bit more complex in nature. The initiatives only provide direction on how employers and educational facilities should operate in terms of hiring employees, admitting students, wage compensation, promotion selection, and etcetera. However, what truly is at the root of the issue is personal bias and prejudices that the hiring/admitting personnel and managers have. Educating individuals to check their biases and prejudices at the door when in the workplace and not let it affect your decision making better the
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Texas a group of students argued that the University of Texas could not use race as a factor in the admission process. In 2002 the courts found that in 79 % of the university’s classes had zero or one African-American students and 30% had zero or one Hispanic students. The court decided at that time that all race neutral options were inefficient are providing diversity in the student body and thus the students that sued were denied their claim. The students attempted to appeal the court’s decision however each time the court stated that the University of Texas had an obligation to maintain their affirmative action plan although they did recommend strict …show more content…
However Equal Opportunity is the idea, morals, freedom from discrimination in the workplace and/or education institution. Affirmative Action is a plan that an employer is put on when they have been found to be behaving in a discriminatory way. An affirmative action plan includes frequent checks where the employer must supply statistics to show that they are in fact improving.
Working Together
Although the Equal Employment Opportunity initiative and Affirmative Action plan are in fact two different, they both can work together to improve the discrepancies that still exist today in the American Workplace. Companies that choose voluntary Affirmative Action plans and are progressive in their Equal Employment Opportunity initiatives create opportunities where cultural inclusion, respect and acceptance of religious differences, decreasing gender inequality and ultimately respect for all co-workers is a

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