Affirmative Action: Does it help or hurt minorities?

            In 1961, President Kennedy started a policy dubbed “affirmative action” that aimed to eliminate discrimination against minorities that existed in spite of civil rights laws.  However, affirmative action was meant to be a temporary remedy which would cease to exist once the playing field had been leveled for every American. Fifty years later, affirmative action has fulfilled its purpose and ought to be eliminated.  This policy deserves to be eliminated because it leads to reverse discrimination, degrades true minority achievement, and strays from the path of achieving a truly color-blind society.

            Affirmative action is an ineffective policy because it leads to reverse discrimination by lowering standards of personal responsibility.  This policy was originally designed to put a stop to discrimination and treatment of students based on color; however, it does the opposite. Many Caucasian and Asian students who are more qualified than minorities (Blacks and Hispanics) can be passed up because of their skin tone. Furthermore, minority students are now realizing that the bar of achievement have been lowered for them. If you were a minority student who realized that you can get into Rutgers with a 3.0 GPA, why would you try for a 4.0?  These accountability standards lead students to be ill-equipped in college. This is because when colleges are forced to lower their own standards to achieve the minority quota, students on the bottom of the totem pole find it hard to keep up. It is similar to a middle school player being called up to play quarterback for the Cowboys.  This is evident through the lower graduation rate of minorities as compared to their racial counterparts.  College admission officers should reward hard work and discipline, not a skin tone to fulfill a quota.

            Furthermore, affirmative action also demeans true minority achievement. This is because the success of many minorities is labeled the result of affirmative action. I have seen this occur many times in my life especially during the 2008 presidential election. Many of President Obama’s doubters believed that Obama only got to Harvard Law and a senate seat because he was black. Although Obama was exceptionally brilliant and hard working, many believed that his success came from affirmative action not discipline.  This takes away from the original goal of affirmative action which was to give minorities the respect they deserve.  Many of those who doubt minority business leaders, doctors, and lawyers rely on the sole belief that they only got to where they are due to affirmative action.  Minorities have worked hard to get to where they are and it would be unfair to portray them as receiving preferential treatment.

            Affirmative action is also futile in the way that it strays from establishing a color blind society.  College applications often require you to fill out your hair and skin color. This is ineffectual as there is no correlation between skin tone and intelligence or discipline. The downfalls of a minority quota can be seen in the 2003 case of the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policies.  At the undergraduate level, admissions were made on a point system. This point system allotted twice as many points for being of the Hispanic or African-American race as compared to the achievement of a 2400 SAT score. This led to a lawsuit from three white students suing for racial discrimination. Furthermore, a color blind society would allow for the best firefighters to become captains regardless of race. In 2009, firefighters who took captain’s exams had their tests thrown out when it was deemed that enough minorities had not passed the test. These anecdotes showcase the fact that affirmative action is a policy that needs to be eliminated in order to establish a color blind society.

            In the words of Walter Williams "Some black students, who were admitted to the academy meritoriously on the same basis as white students, resent the idea of being seen as having the same academic qualities as blacks who were given preferential treatment, in other words being dumb. Another level of resentment comes from white students who see blacks as being admitted and retained at lower levels of academic performance and being treated with “kid gloves”. As you can see, affirmative action allows for reverse discrimination by lowering the bar of achievement for minority students. It also allows for the degradation of true minority achievement. Finally, this policy curbs the establishment of a color blind society. These are the pitfalls of affirmative action, a policy that needs to be eliminated.