Affirmative Action
In the United States, Affirmative Action is one of the government programs to overcome the effects of past societal discrimination by allocating jobs and resources to members of specific groups, such as minorities and women. The policy was put forth by federal agencies enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and two executive orders, which provided that government contractors and educational institutions receiving federal funds develop such programs. The Equal Employment Opportunities Act (1972) set up a commission to enforce such plans.
The establishment of racial quotas in the name of affirmative action brought the charges of so-called reverse discrimination into the late 1970s. Although the U.S. Supreme Court accepted such an argument in the case University of California v. Bakke (1978), it let existing programs stand and it also approved the use of quotas in 1979 in a case involving voluntary affirmative-action programs in unions and private businesses. In......
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Approximate Word Count: 324
Approximate Pages: 2 (260 words per double-spaced page) |