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American economist, social and political commentator, Dr. Thomas Sowell identified some negative results of race-based affirmative action in his book, Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study. Sowell writes that affirmative action policies encourage non-preferred groups to designate themselves as members of preferred groups (i.e., primary beneficiaries of affirmative action) to take advantage of group preference policies; that they tend to benefit primarily the most fortunate among the preferred group (e.g., upper and middle class blacks), often to the detriment of the least fortunate among the non-preferred groups (e.g., poor whites or Asians); that they reduce the incentives of both the preferred and non-preferred to perform at their best. Instead of hiring the most qualified, jobs often go to a minority to fill a quota for the sake of minority diversity.
In my opinion affirmative action is "reverse discrimination". Affirmative action has undesirable side-effects in addition to failing to achieve its goals. It hinders reconciliation, replaces old wrongs with new wrongs, undermines the achievements of minorities, and encourages individuals to identify themselves as disadvantaged, even if they are not. It increases racial tension and racial profiling. I also believe it benefits the more privileged people within minority groups at the expense of the least fortunate within majority groups (such as lower-class whites).
Affirmative Action was born of the civil rights movement three decades ago, it calls for minorities and women to be given special consideration in employment, education and contracting decisions.
Institutions with affirmative action policies generally set goals and timetables for increased diversity and use recruitment, set-asides and racial preference as ways of achieving those goals.
In its modern form, affirmative action can cause an admissions officer faced with two similarly qualified applicants to choose the minority over the white, or for a manager to recruit and hire a qualified woman for a job instead of a man. Affirmative Action decisions are generally not supposed to be based on quotas, nor are they supposed to give any preference to unqualified candidates. However that is often not the case. Affirmative Action laws are not supposed to harm anyone through "reverse discrimination" however this is exactly what it achieves 30 years later.
When are minorities going to quit playing the "Al Sharpton race card?" When do minorities that are quickly becoming the majority quit getting special consideration based on ethnicity or sexual gender? The year is 2010, do we really need Affirmative Action or has it become Reverse Discrimination?
