Race-based affirmative action refers to a policy that mandates remedies against discrimination based on race, color and national origin. The implementation of this policy in college admissions processes is a highly controversial topic. Many people oppose race-based affirmative action because of the way institutions cater to minorities rather than the majority. These opponents tend to consider this policy as a form of “reverse discrimination”. In contrast, race-based affirmative action has many supporters who perceive the policy as promoting the social inclusion of minorities, rather than being implemented for discriminatory reasons. In support of this policy, in education, the implementation of race-based affirmative action in college admissions is very effective due to its approach along three main principles: eliminating past discrimination, remedy the products of past discrimination and prevent future discrimination. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Some may ask, where did affirmative action begin? Well, the notion of affirmative action made its first appearance during President John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10925 in 1961, which created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The initial philosophy of affirmative action was to require institutions to comply with the nondiscrimination mandate of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was created to combat the racial discrimination that existed in employment. In subsequent years, other factors, such as gender and disability, were protected by this policy. Following the introduction, the policy trajectory towards a shift towards both education sectors (public and private). However, the emergence of race-based affirmative action within educational institutions did not become vital until after the Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. of Topeka, which occurred in 1954. Brown v. Board not only allowed minorities and the majority to attend the same schools regardless of race; this further created a chain reaction in which black students gained the opportunity to access the same academic institutions as their white counterparts. The racial integration of colleges and universities had been decided by the Supreme Court before Brown v. Board; however, equal access to quality education and public discourse on race became more central with the Brown decision. Schools then took it upon themselves to implement race-based affirmative action by reserving spots for minority students to be admitted into their student bodies. This case set a precedent for many future affirmative action cases. For example, a race-based affirmative action case that surfaced after Brown v. Board was Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which occurred in 1978. Regents v. Bakke was a Supreme Court case that sought to challenge race-based affirmative action within postsecondary institutions. Many court cases challenging affirmative action have failed due to the fact that most colleges and universities support affirmative action. In this case, the white applicant, Allan Bakke, applied to the medical school at the University of California, Davis, on two occasions,twice having been rejected. Since the university followed affirmative action, 16 out of 100 places were reserved for minority applicants. Bakke then filed a lawsuit against the institution because he believed their admissions process violated the Equal Protection Clause. Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger were also two very important cases that dealt with race-based affirmative action. Grutter and Gratz subsequently filed suit against the University of Michigan over the university's admissions process. The university's main goal was for its student body to consist of students from diverse backgrounds in order to better understand and learn from each other. However, the University of Michigan not only followed the affirmative action policy, but it also unfairly used race as the sole determining factor for the admission of its students. A final case involving race-based affirmative action is Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, which occurred in 2007. Parents Involved in Community Schools is a nonprofit organization made up of parents of students who were, or could have been, affected by the Seattle School District's admissions process . The organization filed a lawsuit against the school district in opposition to the constitutionality of its admissions process. Students were only admitted to their preferred school if their contribution to the school's racial balance was positive. In this essay, I will then discuss the three main principles of race-based affirmative action. Race-based affirmative action is very effective in the college admissions process because it overturns past discrimination against minorities. Many wrongly interpret this compensatory policy as a discriminatory practice against the majority, which this policy does not address. For countless years, white people have been historically known for racial discrimination against minority groups, particularly against African Americans. This historical discrimination is a legitimate reason why minorities underperform in education compared to their white counterparts and need compensation through affirmative action. Proponents of race-based affirmative action encourage its implementation as a means of compensation for all past discriminatory practices imposed upon them, such as slavery, Black Codes, and Jim Crow laws. These past setbacks cause minorities to find themselves falling behind those of the majority. in key areas such as income, health and housing, which ultimately affect education. All of these key areas have been strategically rigged to disadvantage minority groups. For example, statistics show that white people from the highest percentage of highest-income families are more likely to be admitted to an elite school than a minority group participant from a low-income family. lowest incomes. According to the Washington Post, in 2014, the College Board announced that it was focusing less on the timed essay portion and vocabulary of the SAT, and more on accommodating all types of income households. This gives students an equal opportunity to achieve the desired score to get into the college or university of their choice in the future. College Board statistics have shown that families with higher incomes tend to score better on the SAT. Students from high-income households tend to have parents who obviously have a lot of money.money and a university degree or higher. Students from low-income households typically have parents who have less money and a high school diploma or less. According to College Board statistics, students from households in which their parents have their college degrees tend to do better on the SAT than students whose parents have high school diplomas. Additionally, students who had the opportunity to take preparatory courses before taking the SAT tended to achieve higher scores on the test. According to the College Board, students who received their PSAT before taking their actual SAT tend to receive a high score compared to students who did not receive the privilege of a test or prep course. Additionally, parents of students living in low-income housing can't even afford to take an SAT prep course once, let alone twice. This is evidence that institutions should lend a helping hand to minorities who typically reside in lower-income households and have lower-quality parental education, because these students are at a greater disadvantage as a result. These major setbacks for minorities constitute major problems that require a government response. By implementing race-based affirmative action in colleges and universities, the government would reverse ancient discrimination by giving minority students a fair chance to demonstrate their potential despite any challenges that present themselves. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, eight states do not allow affirmative action for college applicants. Affirmative action really shouldn't be of much concern to the majority, given that they reap many of the benefits of their ancestors. Most students at elite schools are comprised primarily of affluent white students. Then you have minority students from less affluent backgrounds who generally can't even afford to go to their dream school, or a school of that caliber. These states that ban affirmative action based on race lead me to believe that they are deliberately wanting to get rid of the only possible thing that could allow minorities to overcome their disadvantages and rise up. The small percentage of reserved spaces that institutions have for minority applicants is not so important as to be as contested as it is. I believe that the majority of individuals who want race-based affirmative action removed only want to do so because it is a policy that does not directly benefit their people. However, what they fail to understand is that while minorities can benefit directly, so can institutions. I don't feel like colleges and universities are implementing race-based affirmative action for the well-being of minorities and to see them prosper. But they do this to make their student population appear diverse, which ultimately benefits minorities, given preferential treatment, and the majority, fortunately. Second, implementing race-based affirmative action in college admissions is highly effective because of its approach to remedying the products of past discrimination. Past discrimination, as I have already said, placed minority groups at a huge disadvantage. The government believed that by integrating schools it had balanced the chances of white and minority students receiving a quality education and being competitive in the future. During theIn his 1965 commencement address at Howard University, President Lyndon B. Johnson explained the general reasoning behind affirmative action: “But liberty is not enough. You do not erase the scars of centuries by saying: from now on, you are free to go where you want, to do what you want and to choose the leaders you like. You don't take a person who for years has been shackled in chains and free them, bring them to the starting line of a race, and then say "you are free to compete with all the others” and continue to believe that you are. being absolutely right. This is the next, deeper stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not only freedom, but also opportunity – not just legal fairness but human capacity – not just equality as law and theory, but equality as fact and outcome. So people who come from more difficult circumstances and have more difficulties should get the same treatment as people who have it all together. This is why the implementation of affirmative action is necessary because it favors minorities, namely students who tend to struggle the most and are more likely to come from a less privileged background. You cannot expect to give both groups equal treatment and for the less privileged to have the same opportunity to succeed. Overall, race-based affirmative action essentially gives minorities the opportunity to acclimate to the real world so that they have a fair chance to compete with the majority who have experienced a glut of years. 'advantage. The mistreatment of minority individuals by whites is the root cause of historical inequalities that continue to exist today. Legal acceptance of racial discrimination allowed the majority to maintain an advantage over minorities. If such preferential treatment of minority groups did not exist, then all areas of politics, profession and education would remain dominated by whites. Furthermore, past discrimination against minority groups has manifested itself in many different areas, such as socio-economic deprivation, social exclusion and stereotyping. Finally, the practice of race-based affirmative action is effective because it will gradually pave the way for minorities to achieve equality in the future. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the enrollment rate for minority students ages 18 to 24 reached 41.7 percent, a significant increase from the enrollment rate of 15.7 percent that existed in 1976. Minority graduation rates have increased. The situation has also improved significantly since the implementation of this policy. Among African American students admitted to a four-year university in 1996, 39 percent of students graduated within six years. For African American students entering a four-year university in 2008, the graduation rate increased by two percentage points. The graduation rate for Hispanic Americans increased from 45.7 percent to 53.5 percent during the same period, irrefutably showing improvement. Furthermore, by implementing this preferential law, it would force educational institutions to diversify their student populations. Many schools perceive “diversity” as having a student body in which racial quotas do not reach the extremes. For preparatory purposes, it would be ideal for students to be taught in an atmosphere similar to that of the.