Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action is an issue discussed in numerous articles and research papers. During the 1980's government's role in Affirmative Action reduced greatly. In 1985, some members of President Regan's administration attempted, without success, to repeal Executive Order 112465 that extended Affirmative Action to women. Three important court cases took place during the 1980's that further define how affirmative action could be implemented. The first was in May of 1986. This case challenged a school board's policy to lay-off non-minority employees first, even though they had seniority. The Supreme Court ruled that this practice is illegal; sighting that it is more intrusive to lay off someone that currently holds a position than it is to initially hire someone due to their race. They basically decided it was unfair to hurt one group to in order to promote another. Later in 1987, the Supreme Court did uphold a policy on enacting strict quotas in the Alabama Department of Public Safety. In 1970, the department was ordered to start hiring black safety officer, yet twelve years later, not one African American officer was promoted above entry level positions. The courts ordered strict quotas, stating that for every white officer that was promoted a black officer must be promoted as well, until 25% of higher ranking officers were African American. Quotas did not apply to all fields. Another industry, construction, was not allowed by the Supreme Court to use quotas. A case in Richmond was brought to trial when 30% of the state's and local government's funds were found to be set aside for black-owned firms. The court ruled that quotas must be under "strict scrutiny," as to avoid abuse.

By the 1990's affirmative action was considered by many to be out dated and unnecessary. Many also viewed the practice as bias, creating reverse discrimination. A monumental case arose in June of 1995 in Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena. In this case, the court again called for "strict scrutiny" in deciding whether or not discrimination existed before implementing a federal affirmative action program. Although two of the judges felt the practice of affirmative action should be banned, the majority felt it was still necessary in order to promote equality in certain circumstances. President Clinton quickly responded to this judgment by saying that well Adarand set, "stricter standards to mandate reform of affirmative action, it actually reaffirmed the need for affirmative action and reaffirmed the continuing existence of systematic discrimination in the United States." That same day, in a White House memo, he called for the elimination of any program that "creates a quota, creates preferences for unqualified individuals, creates reverse discrimination, or continues even after its equal opportunity purposes have been achieved." Many states, such as Washington and California, followed in the president's footsteps and put banns on affirmative action. One of the most significant affirmative action school cases came not too long ago out of Michigan. In 2003, University of Michigan's undergraduate affirmative action policy was put in the line of fire. The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, upheld the University of Michigan's Graduate School's policy on using race as criteria to get in. It did however, strict down their right to use race in the undergraduate admission. In the Majority brief, Judge William H. Rehnquist wrote, "Government has a compelling interest in promoting racial diversity on campus, but the undergraduate school's admission policy is not the way to get there." To receive a complete custom essay on Affirmative Action, do not hesitate to sign in with an order.