Affirnative Action

" An example of this can be described by looking at the admittance records of the University of California at Berkeley. At Berkeley, blacks with an average score on the SATs of nine hundred and fifty-two were accepted into the college over whites that scored an average of twelve hundred and thirty-two and Asians with an average score of twelve hundred and fifty-four. As a result of this, two thousand white and Asian straight A students were turned away from the college to provide room for blacks and Hispanics (Williams, 1997, 171). In order to meet with the affirmative action guidelines, some universities will choose to accept a less qualified student over one who shows greater merit in their grades and work. Approximately seventy percent of the minority students accepted to prestigious universities fail to graduate (Williams, 1997, 174). "Admission requirements to schools gives preferential treatment and insults anyone who is beneficiary of this practice" (Jenkins, 1999, 178). Affirmative action in educational facilities promotes a feeling a reverse discrimination in which whites and Asians with higher SAT scores and grades are denied an education at a prestigious school to fulfill a quota of minorities (Williams, 1997, 173). Affirmative action is not only disappointing in creating equality in schools, it also has not helped in closing the wage gap among men and women or between minorities and white men. .
             Although affirmative action is designed to close the wage gap between men and women, little progress has been made. Women today make up approximately forty-six to forty-seven percent of the workforce (Wage Gap: Myths and Facts, 1993, 1). Although women make up almost half of the workforce, they only earn about seventy-six cents to every dollar that a man earns (Women Assemble to Fight for Equal Pay Day, 1999, 1). Over the last decade, the wage gap between women and men has narrowed by only ten cents.