Affirmative Action is Discrimination in a New Form Essay -- Argumentat

Affirmative Action - Discrimination in a New Form    The roots of affirmative action can be traced back to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act where legislation redefined public and private behavior. The act states that to discriminate in private is legal, but anything regarding business or public discrimination is illegal ("Affirmative" 13). There are two instances when opposing affirmative action might seem the wrong thing to do. Even these two cases don't justify the use of affirmative action. First is the nobility of the cause to help others. Second, affirmative action was a great starter for equality in the work place. The most prominant variable in deciding affirmative action as right or wrong, is whether or not society is going to treat people as groups or individuals. Affirmative action is a question of morals. The simplicity to form two morals that are both correct but conflicting is the reason for the division of our nation on affirmative action.    Affirmative action is very noble when looking at who benefits from the outcome. Take a closer look at affirmative action. The people that are involved and the damage it takes on our society surfaces many doubts. Taking a closer look also stirs up a question of nobility that needs to be answered before making a decision on affirmative action. Does affirmative action simply change who is discriminated against and makes it legal for the new discriminators?    Coming from my point of view, the view of a white male, this is a serious question. One example of this came to my attention from Dave Shiflett who once worked at Rocky Mountain News wrote "Rocky Mountain Hire". In this article he tells about a new hiring strategy used at the Denver news paper Rock... ...countered. The gap between mean SAT scores for black and whites is 938 for whites and 740 for blacks(Shipler 16) These test scores sometimes become the discrimination against minorities. Another form of evaluating students is where the Universities and government need to focus, to establish a standard in education that spans across all levels of income. Affirmative action is definitely not the answer for equality in this day in time.    Affirmative action has balanced for thirty years on a moral threat. It is now time to apply new moral threats, not towards the employers and colleges but towards the government. For it is the government that needs to change its polices. The government needs to take action towards the real problems of equality: poverty, not the bad white man from the past. Affirmative action is simply the same old discrimination in reverse.