"He got into Yale because he is black, you know affirmative action." Hearing this in my freshmen year at Fordham Prep. about a guy I played football with made me outraged knowing how hard he had worked in school and how incredibly high he scored on his boards, that anyone could ever infer he wasn't qualified.
In 1961 the phrase affirmative action was used for the first time and as it was here, it was used in a case of racial discrimination. The first time this phrase was used was in an Executive order from John F. Kennedy stating that federal contractors were to hire using affirmative action to employ regardless of color, creed, race, or nation origin. Kennedy's executive order and the policies shortly following it had the right intentions. They were designed to eliminate discrimination. But since then these good intentions have deviated from what its original intentions were, producing much different policies regarding affirmative action.
The deviation from equal opportunity to job employment changed to what took place in Congress after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. After 1964 this shift was to minorities demanding their statistical share of the job market, no longer equal opportunity but rather a cry for what they believed was their part of the job market. This portion of the job market was to be given to them as what they saw as their right. This would be the focus of all civil rights activists from that point on. Affirmative action from that point on and the way it has been carried out only hurts those it was developed to benefit, as it does the job market, and white males.
Addressing one problem of affirmative action, I believe that it takes something away from and hurts the minorities it was intended to benefit, by down-playing the achievements of all minorities in the work place and in the many other areas of achievement. For example let us say Cornell takes a student based solely on his merit, not taking into consideration his color, creed, race, or gender, and that it turns out this student is African American and felt no need to check off the box on his application concerning color.