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Show HINCKLEY JOURNAL OF POLITICS SPRING 2001 Affirmative Action: Path to Equality or Reverse Discrimination? By Natalie A. Noel Higher education is the door to opportunity for social advancement in our society and is often tied to political and social power. This paper will consider the use of race-based preferential treatment in university and college admissions. By examining key court rulings concerning the implementation of affirmative action in Washington, California, Texas, and Michigan, the nature of the Court's fragmented opinions regarding affirmative action programs with respect to university and college admissions will become evident. The debate over affirmative action is generally split between the need to balance the individual guarantee of equal protection under the law, as stipulated in the Fourteenth Amendment and the interpretation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, with the desire to remedy past discrimination and promote diversity in institutions of higher learning. It is the contention of the author that affirmative action policies such as minority outreach and targeted recruitment, strike a balance in the affirmative action debate and are more effective, constitutional methods to achieve opportunity for all and increase diversity, than are quota-based admissions policies that can themselves be discriminatory. INTRODUCTION Eication is perhaps one of the great equalizers of oppor-inity. Education increases our understanding of the orld in which we live and provides access to the marketplace of ideas. Likewise, in our competitive society, education opens the door to our economy. Employment opportunities and one s socioeconomic status can be directly tied to both formal and informal education. Similarly, one's social and political power can also be tied to one's access and participation in education. Thus, opportunity for admission to state university and colleges is an important local and national concern. Affirmative Action polices in higher education implemented to remedy past or current racial and gender discrimination, remedy low minority enrollment, or increase diversity in higher education have been the source of contention and the center of national debate since the mid-1960s. This paper will examine the course of affirmative action in the United States over the past thirty years, with respect to preferential treatment based on race, in the admissions Natalie Noel is a senior graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Certificate in Practical Politics from the Hinckley Institute of Politics. She served as co-editor for this edition of the Hinckley journal of Politics. Natalie will serve an internship with Senator Robert F. Bennett during the summer of 2001. She wishes to thank those at the Hinckley Institute of Politics and her parents for their continuing support. process of institutions of higher education. Quota based, dual admission programs, and numerically based affirmative action policies that give preferential treatment to race and gender in college and university admissions are generally constitutionally suspect. It is the belief of the author that affirmative action programs that are not quota based, but rather are focused on minority recruitment and outreach benefit a broad base of individuals and are more inclined to provide a fair admissions system in which persons from both genders and all races have access to higher education. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: EARLY HISTORY In the early 1960s, the Warren and then the Burger Court attempted to address the difficult problem of racial segregation in the nation's public schools. During this period the judicial branch ruled that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required an "affirmative duty" of local school boards to desegregate former "dual-school" systems. Furthermore, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 created the framework for introduction of affirmative action in employment and education. Title VII of the Act applies a comprehensive code of equal employment and opportunity regulations to public and private employers with fifteen or more employees. Title VII leaves the judicial branch the charge to take "such affirmative action as may be appropriate," to remedy the situation. Except in the case of being ordered by a court, employers are not required to adopt affirmative action |
