Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action started in the 1960s by President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy wanted to improve educational and employment opportunities for those who belonged to a minority popularity, affirmative action. However, after John was assassinated, Lyndon Johnson, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. This was the act that started the beginning of affirmative action that would impact an American opportunity. Nevertheless, at the end of the decade, businesses throughout America were enforcing provisions that were set forth by the Civil Rights Act, also along with other enforcements that were legal that helped minority groups of disability, ethnicity, age, and gender. He was against the idea of meeting quotas in the workplace, President Richard Nixon in 1969 used the city of Philadelphia as a test when he “required federal contractors to show “affirmative action” to meet the goals of increasing minority employment” (). These quotas too found a way into the federally funded educational institutions and by this time there were a lot of regulations that had been initiated that were insisting that the entrance of minority members. There were a lot of individuals that supported affirmative action who knew that this was the only opportunity to change the historically discriminative American society. There were also a lot of people who wanted to reverse discrimination in the nation. But I strongly believe that the plan of affirmative action has been set in place for equal opportunities in society. However, today, it cannot be successful.

When one think of America they may think of mistreatment of minority people. Females did not have a chance to vote for almost a century and half after the birth of the country and have endured pain all throughout the late twentieth century, up until they started to enter the work place. Lynne Eisaguirre who is the author of Affirmative Action says, “In grocery and department stores, clerks were white and janitors and elevator operators were black”. (). This is one example of how minorities and females received small rights and still came up short in other areas. Though affirmative action was there to make sure individuals received a better job and received a better education, they did not due to them being a minority group. Now, one would consider this to also be discrimination and may also to be one of the key issues of the affirmative action controversy.