Professional Documents
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1st Period
Johnson
One would think that the passing of laws providing equal rights would amount to
equality. Even with the addition of amendments to the constitution giving freedoms to those
previously deprived of civil liberties, equality continued to allude them well into the late 20th
century. President Lyndon B. Johnson once stated, “freedom is not enough.” An end result, the
American Dream, might have glowed ever clearly in the distance, but what hope would any have
in achieving it without any path to it illuminated? In 1965, President Johnson provided the
answer in the form of an executive order that required that contractors “take affirmative action to
ensure that applicants… and employees [would be] treated… without regard to their race,
religion, or sex.” The purpose of affirmative action was, then, to correct the social injustices that
marred the country’s history. By the vast improvements made since then, however, many would
argue that its goals have already been met. In a country largely performance based today, the
continuity of such practice is not only viewed as impractical but demeaning and nonsensical as
affirmative action makes the constitution a barrier to the very legislation that took over 200 years
On the night of November 4, 2008, history was forever changed as Barack Obama
celebrated his victory in the 44th presidential election as the first African American to ever be
named chief executive of the United States. At the end of his speech he stated, “Change has
[finally] come to America.” For a country, who, less than two centuries ago, had enslaved and
barred these same people from every form of freedom, to have elected a minority to the highest
position in government; it becomes blatantly obvious that the laws passed in their favor have
been successful. Before and during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 to 1965,
the idea of having equality in occupational opportunities in the workplace was merely an idea,
and the numbers of African Americans holding jobs above menial manual labor jobs (for those
Gonzales, Analysa Marie
who found jobs) lingered at abysmal levels. Yet, while the country experienced a great rise in its
number of employed minorities, the number of complaints filed with the Equal Employment
Opportunities Commission increased. In 1989, Sharon Taxman, a white high school teacher,
filed a complaint against the School Board of Piscataway for violating the Civil Rights Act of
1964 that forbids firing someone on the basis of race. Taxman believed the school board had
discriminated against her when it voted to keep another teacher, Debra Williams, over her
because they believed “it was in the school’s best interest to have an African American in the
business department.” Though the case never reached the Supreme Court (Taxman settled out of
court), it became clear why affirmative action might pose a threat to its initial purpose; providing
a means of discrimination against those who did not qualify as “previously disadvantaged.”
While minorities before the Civil Rights Movement had experienced great hardship in the
discrimination in employment opportunities, the greatest force holding them back was often not
the lack of job access, but lack of access to the education necessary to get the good jobs. The
1970’s were marked by a rapid increase in the number of affirmative action programs existing in
the country. Colleges, especially, were increasingly using race as a factor in the admission of
freshmen students to their campuses. The number of minorities being accepted dramatically
increased. Surely, those previously disadvantaged, would be enabled to better their standings
elsewhere, both in their careers and their financial standings. Yet, once again, a case of
discrimination evolved from affirmative action. Allan Bakke, a student at the University of
California who had been rejected twice as a medical school applicant, had come to believe that
the sixteen positions reserved for minorities, were of students who received favoritism on the
basis of their race over merit. Though the decision of the Supreme Court in the landmark case of
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke resulted in a victory for Bakke and his
Gonzales, Analysa Marie
supporters, both sides of the debate were left disappointed to some degree. Justice Lewis Powell,
though ultimately declaring racial quotas illegal, did not declare acceptance based on the
consideration of race was not unconstitutional. In other words, discrimination was very much
still possible since minority students could still take precedence over others by race rather than
merit.
fund it. Today, especially, receiving further education in college has become increasingly
expensive. Scholarships, for example, can often mean the difference for a student wishing to
pursue a higher education. Yet scholarships for specific groups often apply only to minorities,
the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund being a great example. While this scholarship can be
helpful to Hispanics who apply for it, the minority is not always the one in greater need. In 2003,
while over half of blacks and Hispanics earned less than $35,000 each year, so did more than
one-third of whites. That data, however, can be misleading as it doesn’t show circumstances or
other feasible information such as which group received the lowest average income. Therefore, it
is simply unfair to assume that any particular white person is better off than any individual
For people half a century ago, affirmative action was both a necessary step towards
equality and a temporary solution for those areas that had yet to incorporate equality within their
institutions. Yet, affirmative action still exists today, though circumstances have greatly changed.
While racism might never be truly and fully extinguished, occurrences such as Barack Obama’s
election should be proof enough that America has made a great change for the better. If the goal
was to eliminate racial discrimination, then distinguishing between races and helping only those
who were once discriminated against no longer serves to solve the problem but only furthers it.
Gonzales, Analysa Marie
Works Cited
Gutierrez-Jones, Carl. (2008). The Affirmative Action and Diversity Project: A Web Page for
Research. Retrieved October 09, 2009, from AAD Project Web Site: http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/
Kowalski, Kathiann M. (2007). Open for Debate: Affirmative Action. New York: Marshall
Canvendish
McPherson, Stephanie Sammartino. (2005). The Bakke Case and the Affirmative Action Debate.
Sykes, Marquita (1995). The Origins of Affirmative Action. Retrieved October 09, 2009, from