Does Affirmative Action Help Or Hurt?

A very loaded question but...

I would imagine it's counter-productive: why aim for high achievement when you can simply advance yourself based on the colour of your skin or your gender? And I'd imagine it breeds resentment among those who are then excluded on the basis of having the wrong skin colour, religion, or gender, and among those who are led by somebody who was helped into their position by affirmative action.

The reason I say "I'd imagine" above is because it seems to be a phenomenon that's largely confined to the US and, to a lesser extent, the UK. Most other places seem content with meritocracy.

Tommy.

It was originally put into place because of rampant & historic discrimination in the U.S.

Highly qualified minorities could not get some of the good jobs.

In some cases people that were not qualified for certain jobs took advantage of the policy.

On the education front, lots of people were given chances to go to some of the finer schools and proven they could excel...

... and in some cases people that were not qualified for admission to certain schools of higher learning took advantage of the policy.

It's been contorted in many ways and since lots of it is now mostly voluntary, it's time has come to phase it out.

For college admins it should be based on income.

The U.S. is a nation with a very diverse population and lots of institutions, businesses & cities/states voluntarily have a diversity program.

There is no such thing as a true meritocracy.

50% of the hiring for new jobs are of people that are friends that work at the businesses.

60-70% of people with degrees are not working in their field of study.


TL

I can understand the (prior) need for affirmative action but what I don't understand is this -

There was a (white) student in California about the time that I started going to the university, who did really well on his SAT exams and applied to a prestigious university. He was denied, so he took the test again but marked that he was black instead and got accepted.

These so called "quotas" are not working. Why should a business owner have to hire (or a university accept) X% of certain races just because of their skin color? If you're qualified for the job, I don't care if you're black, brown, or from Mars - you're hired. But to force it on people is another thing entirely.

Now we're getting extremely inept and unqualified people in well-paying jobs just because of their skin color. I used to be a teacher and can recall several instances where I was told to just "push a student through" (pass them) based on their race because they weren't performing as well as other students.

Academicians like to blame the student's background, income level, culture - what have you. I don't doubt that coming from a family where education isn't exactly a priority can affect a student's ability to learn, but I also think that the media is conditioning these kids that they can just sail through life and a college education and well-paying job will be handed to them.

Hmmmmm, so far it looks as if the general consensus is that Affirmative Action is no longer needed or required.

I think that affirmative action has its advantages and disadvantages. Of course a course of forceful resistance could result in things getting worse or even bloodshed but like what people say, desperate times call for desperate measures.

When a minority group is experiencing discrimination so badly that they can't get into the mainstream society affirmative action is needed to put enough of them into positions that will allow that race, gender, etc. get into the mainstream - but once established in the mainstream it becomes counter-productive. Here in the US it really was needed for a short time - but should have expired long ago. Now it is just breeding an underachieving privileged class.