Affirmative Action

[Mylo]

Considering that there is now a case in the Supreme Court that could change the legality of this idea, what do you all think of it?  Should things like race be considered in job hiring, college applications, etc?

Here are just a couple of articles I found:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/13/opinion/granderson-affirmative-action/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/sunday-review/rethinking-affirmative-action.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[Sk Skunk]

We should be at a place where affirmative action is no longer necessary. There are good reasons for it to be used in some cases. The problem becomes when there are people who qualify for a certain position, but a person of lesser ability is given preference. Lowering standards for some, just to make thing fair, helps no one. In some cases, I feel that it can make things worse. A person who is not ready or qualified to do whatever, is likely being set up to fail. This can and does strengthen a point of view that has kept similar people from being considered. Humans are different, and it has nothing to do with what a person looks like, their gender, or heritage.

[Ziel]

So the 'majority' people argue that it's bad because minorities get hired solely to create diversity. The 'minority' argue that it's bad because the majority will always think they got the position solely to create diversity, whether they are actually qualified or not.

I kinda agree that it really doesn't serve the purpose that it once did. As the articles noted, it is more about diversity than it is fairness now. I see what could be part of it where I work. The company likes to boast that they are a perennial pick as a top company for x and y minorities. If you look around, it feels like there are about as many minority employees in the building as there are majority. I'm not going to say whether or not these people had the qualifications for their positions. That's not my point of bringing it up. It's more to illustrate that these lists that are put out solely for PR purposes to make the company look 'better'.

Anyhow, I'd be okay to see it go. If companies really want to get work done efficiently, rather than staff to meet quotas for PR, they would hire the most qualified person for the job. Who cares what their lineage may be?

The pendulum of fairness and equality has to swing back at some point...

[Avor]

Afermitive action is just another word for racial and sexail discrimination, regaurdless who gains from it, it's still wrong and a insult to every person that undersants and values meaning of eqaulity.


Afermitive action is a plauge brought on by a weak willed public and leaders  that were to affraid to fight the issue of discrimination poroperly because of never-ending guilt trip.

There is no place for this level of nonsense in a lawfull, western styled, democracy. You can argue tha a number of XXXXX were discriminated against, but we alreay had laws in place that make that a crime. The problem is that it's not as srongly enforced as iit clearly should. To put in a policy that spites non-offending citizens by compensating  an entire exclussive group for crimes commited idiviuals, wil not help the situation. These  policies of afermitive action nothing to bring people to justice, and then unfair treatment will only creates a culture of animosity, leading to even more discrimination and even hate crimes.

[Narei Mooncatt]

Lately I've been hearing a lot of job advertisements stating at the end that they are "...an equal opportunity, affirmative action employeer." Sorry, but it's impossible to have it both ways. I think that pretty well sums up my opinion on the idea.

[Avan]

'No' to affirmative action. Its just more discrimination, as everyone else has noted.

[Yip]

Voluntary Equal Opportunity Questionnaire
As an equal opportunity employer, we hire without consideration to race, religion, creed, color, national origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status or disability. We invite you to complete the optional self-identification fields below used for compliance with government regulations and record-keeping guidelines.

I've seen a number of job applications with a section like this at the end. This one in particular was taken from the application of a company where I applied for a testing position about a year ago. I didn't get the job, but I later learned that a former co-worker of mine, a female, did. Having worked with this person, I -know- I'm much better at game and software testing then they are. Now I can't say for sure that they got the position due to being female and thus helping the company meet "compliance with government regulations". I mean, it's entirely possible they got the job by being better at selling themselves than I am. However, it does make me wonder.

[Aakosir]

The whole idea is absolutely ridiculous. As others have stated it is just another form of discrimination. And the funny thing is now white females are less likely to be hired over a Hispanic female. Every single application that I have completed in the past month has had a gender and race section. More than half started with "Are you of Latino/Hispanic origin/decent?" then continue to another question where you select your race. I bet that if I were to lie and say "yes, I am Latino/Hispanic" I would get a call back. Now, I'm not being the racist one. The companies are. They know minorities will work for a lower wage and will still work pretty hard. Some of them work harder than managers! But getting hired just because they are a certain race/gender is not right. The whole workforce is corrupt.