The goal of the civil rights movement was one thing. The same thing that Rosa
Parks, Ruby Bridges, and John F. Kennedy fought for. The same thing that Martin Luther
King Jr. gave his life for. Equality. That means everyone is treated the same. Race is not
supposed to be a contributing factor in any decision. But then there is affirmative action.
Affirmative Action is an action or policy favoring those who tend to suffer from
discrimination. It is supposed to prevent discrimination based on race, gender, religion, or
national origin. The idea behind this is great but in many situations where it is applied it
has the reverse effect. When college admittance offices use this they reverse what they
are trying to accomplish. For example, say there are two students looking to get in. They
have the exact same statistics. Their grades are the same and they participated in the
exact same sports and clubs. The only difference is that one student is hispanic and the
other is white. In some cases this is where affirmative action can come into play. In an
effort to create a more “culturally diverse” student body colleges will chose the hispanic
student. See the idea behind it works but what did the hispanic student do to make it a
better choice than the white student. All the person did was be born into a certain family.
You can’t change what race you are so why should that make you a worse candidate?
Clarence Thomas, the only current African-American Supreme Court Justice, is also against
affirmative action. He says affirmative action implies that minorities “need special
treatment to succeed”. He also refers to affirmative action as “reverse discrimination”.
In the 50’s if you were black you got the short end of the stick. Now the situation is
reversed. It’s not fair to not accept someone because of their race. If you do that to a
black person its discrimination and you’re a racist. If you do that to a white person
nobody cares and its okay because of affirmative action. We all know discrimination is
wrong. It’s like being in kindergarten and you tell someone they can’t play with you for
some dumb reason you don’t even remember the next day. Discrimination is ridiculous.
By putting it under a different name does not change the fact that it is still discrimination.
When a college uses affirmative action in its college admissions it crushes the dreams of
its applicants. Many people plan their whole lives out starting with college. They work so
hard to try and accomplish their dreams. But when they go and try to apply but they
don’t get accepted. Why? Because someone else is taking their place just because of the
color of their skin. The worst part of affirmative action is that it doesn’t even cover all
forms of discrimination. It doesn't cover homosexuality and a variety of other things. So
its not even doing the job it’s supposed to do. Even though affirmative action protects
against discrimination against minorities, gender, religion, and national origin it doesn't
help you if you are homosexual. So the supposed blanket of protection that affirmative
action gives is actually nonexistent. America was built on the standard of equality. In the
Declaration of Independence it says “and we hold these truths evident that all men are
created equal”. So how come colleges believe they are exempt. By using affirmative
action they are creating reverse discrimination. No matter what, if you don’t choose
omeone because of something they can’t change, you are discriminating against them