Professor McCormick
Written Argument
December 12th, 2012
Affirmative Action
As unfortunate I am, who fails on dreaming inside the boundaries of reality, I dream that the American nation will one day rise and live it to its creed:” We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” – Martin Luther King Jr. King stated these words, in 1963 in Washington D.C., on his famous speech “I have a Dream.” After experiencing the American nation and having learned about its literature and history, I get the idea that Affirmative Action is still necessary as Americans tend to not show enough equality and diversity. To me, there exists only one definition of affirmative action, which is race and gender neutral against the actual discrimination by privileging the minorities, in order to make up for past injustices. I say this, as most Americans describe affirmative action differently, causing problematic controversy. Americans still lacks on equality and diversity in their universities and workforce, which means that affirmative action is essential for further positive changes towards them.
The people of the United States tend to think of that second definition of affirmative action and are rather incorrect. There is no way that diversity and equality are going to cherish in an environment that has controversial definitions that vary from each other. Affirmative action measures are intended to prevent discrimination against employees and students, on a basis of their color, nationality, gender or religion. It is necessary in the US because Americans have insufficient equality and diversity in their society, which is also a reason for people to have different variants of its definition. It brings people from different races and backgrounds together to interact in universities and workplaces. Diversity and equality are values that have been highly honored at the Harvard University, back in 1996, by John Stewart Mills who emphasized the
Cited: 1)"Definition: Affirmative Action." Online. Yahoo. 08A Jan. 2013. http://www.adversity.net/Terms_Definitons/TERMS/Affirmative_Action.htm. 2)Feminist Majority Foundation. "Affirmative Action: Expanding Employment Opportunities for Women." Online. Yahoo. 08 Jan.2013. http://www.feminist.org/other/ccri/aafact2.html. 3)Fullinwider, Robert. "Affirmative Action." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2002 Edition). Edward N. Zalta (ed.). http://plato.standford.edu/archives/spr2002/entries/affirmative-action/. 4)King, Martin Luther Jr. The Peaceful Warrior. Pocket Books, NY 1968. http://www.mecca.org/~crights/dream.html. 5) "Affirmative action ban draws a challenge". The National Law Journal. Retrieved 2013-01 08.