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Is Affirmative Action Fair?

 

This legislation, along with an executive order in 1965, helped blacks by forcing businesses receiving federal funds to stop using aptitude tests and other criteria that tended to discriminate against blacks ("affirmative action"). Eventually, these laws expanded to incorporate women and other ethnic minorities including American Indians and Hispanics.
             Laws have also broadened affirmative action to public universities as well as businesses. This led to universities setting quotas where it would accept so many members from a certain group, usually to create diversity. However, the Supreme Court ruled in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) by a 5-4 margin that "fixed quotas may not be set for places for minority applicants for medical school if white applicants are denied a chance to compete for those places" ("affirmative action"). This ruling also reaffirmed that race could be considered in decisions involving admissions. .
             In the past 10 years, affirmative action has come under fire in the courts. Starting with several cases in 1989, the Supreme Court has restricted affirmative action by:.
             "[giving] greater weight to claims of reverse discrimination, outlawed the use of minority set-asides in cases where prior racial discrimination could not be proved, and placed stricter limits on states' use of racial preferences than it did on the federal government. In Adarand Constructors v. Pena (1995), the court placed stricter limits on affirmative-action programs, stating they were unconstitutional unless they fulfilled a 'compelling governmental interest'." ("affirmative action") .
             Currently in the Supreme Court, there are five justices who have never voted for affirmative action based on race: Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas (Tummala). So it appears that any issues in the near future take up by the Supreme Court on affirmative action are likely to limit it once again.


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