October 17, 2001
Week 4
Jeremy Vigil
INSTRUCTOR
Bob Weltzer
Affirmative action was created many years ago. I believe that it has played a positive role for women and minorities. The last few sentences of this article perfectly describe my position. “Affirmative action is not a perfect remedy, but it beats the alternative.” The alternative is less hired women and minorities. This in turn creates more unskilled minority workers. People ask why there is a high crime rate in minority areas. The reason is there are not enough jobs available for minority workers. Affirmative action was created to alleviate discrimination and make more jobs available for minorities.
There are many misunderstandings about affirmative action. In my opinion, the biggest misunderstanding is that companies are forced to hire unqualified minorities over qualified whites. This is false. Affirmative action only requires companies to look at a bigger pool of employees, which includes minorities. Other arguments are we don’t require affirmative action legislation anymore, Reverse discrimination, and the free market will punish the ones not hiring the most qualified individuals. All of these arguments don’t outweigh the benefits.
I wanted to first address the issue of not needing affirmative action anymore. I believe we still need affirmative action. The proof is only to stand up and look around in your office and notice how many minorities are working. You will notice few minority workers especially in a supervisory role. This is more so in a technical field which I am part of. The higher up in management you are the more obvious it becomes. I admit it has been better the last few years.
Affirmative action was not meant to cause unqualified minority workers to get hired. The main purpose is to get qualified minorities to be hired more frequently. Affirmative action has given many qualified minorities to get hired. The myth that unqualified minorities will get jobs over qualified minorities is giving affirmative action a bad reputation. I also think that unqualified candidates should not be hired because of affirmative action. If this was the case I would be argue against affirmative action so would many others. One problem is many people are now against affirmative action because of this misconception. I didn’t realize that affirmative action doesn’t guarantee jobs for minorities until reading this article. That is one problem. It isn’t very well publicized that affirmative action doesn’t guarantees jobs. The only news reports or arguments I have heard are that affirmative action is giving jobs to the unqualified. It’s very discouraging to know the perception of affirmative action is untrue but has the saying goes “perception is reality.”
I believe there has been a small fraction of reverse discrimination but it is nothing compared to what women and minorities have been dealing with for decades. The negative effect of reverse discrimination is outweighed by the positive affects of affirmative action. I have heard the stories of reverse discrimination but I have no sympathy for these cases. This has been miniscule compared to the incalculable numbers of discrimination against women and minorities. The small cases of reverse discrimination are overshadowing the true problem of lack of minorities in the workplace.
Affirmative action doesn’t address the core problem. Why aren’t there more qualified minorities to take the higher paid jobs? I thing it all starts with education. More minorities need to go to school but there is a catch 22. Most minorities are at home supporting their families because they don’t have a high paying job but for them to get a high paying job they need to go to school. Minorities need to overcome this perception.
The “good old boy” network is what affirmative action is trying to avoid. This is hampering affirmative action by denying higher paid jobs to minorities. Higher paid jobs are not advertised. You have to know someone in order to get the job. This is from experience. The best jobs I have been hired for were because I knew someone inside the company. Unfortunately, more whites have higher positions they recommend other whites to fill the position not because of discrimination but, because its who they know. Discrimination has lessened over the years but segregation has changed as fast. I don’t believe this segregation is intentional.
Affirmative action is not a perfect solution but it is a start. The next step to get more women and minorities qualified to fill the opportunities that affirmative action give. It is our social responsibility to make sure minorities are better equipped to fill higher paying jobs not jobs in general. If you look at the back of a fast food restaurant who do you see? Minorities. Why is that so? It’s definitely not affirmative action.
I believe it is part of cooperate social responsibility to make sure everyone has a fair chance to obtain a job at a fair rate. Employees are the most overlooked stakeholders but that’s another paper.