If a white male, who was five feet tall, tried out for the Los Angeles Lakers, would the government have the right to tell the team's owner that he had to sign the player, simply because traditionally there has been a higher percentage of blacks than whites in the game of basketball? Of course not, that would be totally wrong. Playing on a professional sports team is based on talent and merit, and thus it should be with every other profession. In fact, according to the NIF booklet on this topic, the majority of affirmative action policies do not target the lower-class minorities that actually need help breaking into the workforce. Instead, middle-class minorities and women, who have had relatively the same educational opportunities as white middle-class males, are given preference. While the government should make sure that discriminatory hiring practices are not used, it should not give an unfair advantage to equally qualified students or applicants simply because of their race or gender. The only viable way to create a truly equitable society is to expand programs that give assistance to the economically disadvantaged. Though these measures, the lower-class, which has traditionally been composed of a large percentage of minorities, will be able to compete fairly with white males for educational and employment opportunities.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said that people should be judged "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character". This statement is true in every aspect of American society. Morally, discrimination is wrong whatever the color of a person's skin. No matter what advocates of affirmative action say, it does discriminate against certain people. Usually those people are wealthy white males; however, lower-class white males are also discriminated against under the guise of affirmative action. People should only be judged for employment or educational opportunities, on their merit.
