Theology Essay

Submitted By apepper05
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Anna Pepper 5/14/2013 Period 2 Essay #1 “Affirmative Action”

In the “Pros and Cons of Affirmative Action Handout”, affirmative action was defined as
“a catch-phrase for various measures that propose to address and rectify the pervasive, systematic discrimination experienced by people of color and women through facilitating, encouraging, or, rarely, compelling their inclusion in the mainstream of society.” The idea itself is very logical and politically correct. But, when one takes a closer look it is apparent that using affirmative action is counterproductive and does more hurt than help. It cultivates rather than diminishes discrimination and lowers the accountability of students. Furthermore, there are different measures that could be taken to achieve the same desired outcome.
Allan Bakke was a white male who applied to and was rejected from the regular admissions program of Berkley Medical College in 1973 and 1974. He later found that applicants with lower scores were admitted under the “special program,” a program that allowed applicants to be accepted to the school, even if they did not meet the same standards as the regular candidates, solely because they were minorities. This was a form of discrimination. Many cannot see this because the victim here was white. Our society has formed this idea that one cannot technically be racist against white people, but that white people are the discriminatory ones. This idea comes from our past, where white people perversely violated the civil rights of those who did not share their same skin color. Since then, however, the U.S. has enacted laws and made Amendments to the Constitution to make sure that all people are treated equal. Now, no white man or woman can ever know what it was like to be in the shoes of those who were denied freedom, but the white people of today are not the ones who took their rights from them. We are a new generation. We have improved and moved forward, and we keep moving forward everyday. We cannot allow white people to be punished for the crimes of their ancestors, and allow reverse discrimination in America. We are not a nation of vengeance, but of justice. And just as our nation saw that being white does not give you more rights than every other citizen, our nation must see that being a racial minority should not give you more rights as well. Therefore, the decisions of the Superior Court of Yolo County, California and the Supreme Court of California in the Bakke Case that the special admissions program violated the federal and state constitutions, as well as Title VI, and was therefore illegal were completely right and fair. In Continuation, the case of Grutter v. Bollinger, again dealing with affirmative was so controversial; it was taken to the Supreme Court as well. Barbara Grutter, a white Michigan citizen and resident with a 3.8 GPA and 161 LSAT score, was rejected by the University of Michigan Law School and in December of 1997 filed for a suit against the college. Alleging that the university had discriminated against her on the basis of race in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Grutter went to court. However it had the opposite ruling of Bakke. Justice O'Connor's majority opinion held that the United States Constitution "does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling