After writing my last paper, I decided to deal with a law that goes with my major. The law that I chose to do was affirmative action. Affirmative action is a policy to encourage equal opportunity and to level the playing field for groups of people who have been and are discriminated against (Stein, Martinez, Tashiro). The term affirmative action is applied to the use of racial, ethnic, or gender preferences set apart a variety of social benefits. Treating people differently because of the color of their skin used to be called discrimination , but today its called affirmative action. "Affirmative action" is applied to many federal, state, and other programs aimed at achieving racial and gender diversity in the workforce. Many opponents find this conception easy to exploit. .
Affirmative action can be traced back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On September 24, 1965 executive order required that federal contractors "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants received jobs without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin" (www.now.org). Employers are being asked to hire less qualified workers and for more money too. It showed discrimination in a wide variety of public and private settings. Title II of the Act prohibited discrimination in privately owned facilities opened to the public. Title VI outlawed discrimination in federal funded programs. Also, Title VII prohibited discrimination by both private and public employers. In the beginning, affirmative action aimed to get rid of racism in hiring policies. The goals were later extended to college admissions and of government contracts. Affirmative action has been a debated issue for years.
Affirmative action today has been considered one of the most controversial issue facing our equal status of individual rights. Affirmative action was put into the system in hope that America would become equal. So far, it has lasted 30 years and has not solved any of our current problems dealing with equal rights.