Original scientific paper
Controversies on affirmative action
Milan Mesić
Abstract
Affirmative action was launched by American presidents J.F. Kennedy and L.B. Johnson, yet by ironic historical accident it attained its greatest expansion and most radical form during R. Nixon’s conservative administration. Affirmative action was originally a government programme aimed at improving the social position of Afro-Americans, mostly in the sphere of employment and education, as a kind of compensation for racial discrimination, and also other forms of social injustice suffered by minority and underprivileged groups. Its goal was to increase the proportion of Afro-Americans, and later members of other minorities, as well as women, in higher education institutions and in various types of employment. It was supported by many social researchers and activists. Law courts, namely their verdicts and explanations in the case of precedents, had an especially important role in the debate on affirmative action. Political conservatives attacked various affirmative action programmes (especially preferential enrolment quotas for minority students), basing their criticism on the American constitutional principles on equal rights for every citizen. Market conservatives, furthermore, claimed that the government’s policy of racial preference brought into question the very basis of the capital system (competition) and at the same time was not in the interest of the Afro-American working class. Namely, the social strata that profited most was the relatively affluent segment of the Afro-American community, which only increased economic and social differences within the latter. Recently the debate on affirmative action in the US has not been limited only to two opposing sides (liberals and conservatives). More and more scientists and other participants have recognised the negative aspects and also the failures of affirmative action, while at the same time refuting conservative opinions and goals.
Keywords
affirmative action; multiculturalism; education; conservative critics; liberal critics; racial discrimination; corrective justice
Hrčak ID:
4776
URI
Publication date:
25.9.2005.
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