Another method introduced to try and counter the racial inequality in employment is that of Affirmative Action. Affirmative action calls for minorities and women to be given special consideration in employment, education and contracting decisions, to increase their number in the workplace.
Affirmative action is a controversial issue which has been debated by many. In this essay I am going to look at the advantages and disadvantages of affirmative action and what affect it has on society. I will also debate whether I think affirmative action is a fair method to implement in organisations, and also whether it can be considered to be fair from a philosophical perspective.
Affirmative action was defined as an attempt to enlarge opportunity for everyone, it was designed to redress the imbalances caused by long-standing discrimination. Defenders of affirmative action argue that granting modest advantages to minorities and women is more than fair, given hundreds of years of discrimination that benefited whites and men. This implies that as blacks have previously suffered from detrimental racist discrimination and wrongdoings, including slavery and not having the right to vote, they now deserve extra benefits to compensate. This is known as "reverse racism". It argues that as whites once set themselves apart from blacks and claimed privileges for themselves while denying them to others, now, on the basis of race, blacks are able to claim special status and reserving for themselves privileges they deny to others.
The question then arises: Do two wrongs make a