Affirmative Action: The "Cure" that Creates its Own Disease

I don't get it! I don't see why people with half a brain can think this way! The other day I read in an article, somewhere off of the U of U's website, "opponents of Affirmative Action claim that 'more deserving' white students/employees are being denied educational/employment opportunities." ....News flash: If the student has better grades or the employee is more qualified, THEY ARE “MORE DESERVING”!

Affirmative Action is reverse racism disguised as charity and compassion that, in the end, does more harm than good. When we employ Affirmative Action policies we devalue accomplishments and credentials of those who are qualified based on skin color. There’s a quiet racism behind Affirmative Action, which, if actually understood, speaks volumes about the supporters of it. When we are forced to lower standards and accept less qualified individuals into the business place or education system because of their social group, we are telling them that they can’t do as well and need the extra help in order to compete.

Justice dictates that a scholarship or admittance into a school should be based off of merits regardless of race. We need to understand that Affirmative Action has nothing to do with equal rights. If a minority is better qualified but a white student is chosen over him the minority can take them to court and essentially win the lottery. If it were the other way around, the white student would have to essentially bend over and take it. Affirmative Action is a practice that discriminates against the more qualified white individual and gives a much higher priority to the minorities. Lets take Jesse Jackson for example. He is a black millionaire who said, “God gave you your skin color, so why not use it to your advantage” by the way. If his son were to go to school, his application would be favored above that of a white student who was raised in absolute poverty and had better scores. That’s not even debatable.

In order to illustrate a point, I want to tell a little story. We have a student who we shall call Jane. Jane grew up in a low income broken white family. However, despite her misfortune, she excels in school and works hard. She applies for a respected college but finds out that the lower scoring minorities are given preference over her. She ends up going to a lesser college and again she graduates at the top of her class. Recruits from the top fortune 500 companies come to her school. Jane quickly finds out that all of these companies have policies in place that favor diversity. Not to be deterred, she finds a job with a lower salary than she deserves but she works hard. Promotion time comes around and she sees that this company discriminates on this front as well... The discrimination Jane faces is real and it happens every day.

Now, I’m in no way saying that diversity in the schools and the workplace is a bad thing and I’m not saying that a change wasn’t needed when Affirmative Action was put into place. I am, however, saying that replacing old wrongs with new wrongs is not the way to do it. Stanford Magazine said it well, "The basic problem is that a racist past cannot be undone through more racism. Race-conscious programs betray Martin Luther King's dream of a color-blind community, and the heightened racial sensitivity they cause is a source of acrimony and tension instead of healing."

To deny that racism exists is foolish. There are some people who are very racist and some institutions founded on a legacy of a much more racist past. But racism is not everywhere like the Left and the NAACP love to suggest and there's very little in the collegiate realm. Perhaps the problem with affirmative action is that we are trying to solve a problem that really doesn't exist. Moreover, there is a growing sense that if affirmative action has not succeeded in ending discrimination after 25 years of determined implementation, then perhaps it is time to try something else.

Affirmative Action shows who the real racists are. Imagine if a corporate executive were to discriminate against a black man by hiring a lesser-qualified white man. The New York Times and established media would be howling with a burning indignation. So you tell me who are the real racists: those who support Affirmative Action that whispers to the minorities that they don’t have to do better because they can’t do better (which of course is untrue) and discriminates against whites or those who support real equality by hiring and admitting people into school based on merits alone?

Merit should be individual achievement.. Of course this doesn't just mean grades and what you got on your ACT or SAT. A broad range of accomplishments should be taken into consideration. Athletics, music, drama, student government, school clubs, and other extra curricular activities should be considered. But race and ethnicity (or gender or sexual preference) have no place in this list; these are traits, not achievements.

The worst part about affirmative action and perhaps the most tragic is that the very significant achievements of minorities are easily compromised. Because of affirmative action, it's much harder to tell if a minority genuinely deserved to get into a prestigious school or top position in a job or if they just happened to fit into this forced agenda. If a person were to suspect that be the case, they are immediately labeled as a racist or a bigot or a misogynist even when the suspicion is correct.

An America without affirmative action will be an America in which the question of who belongs here will no longer need to be answered. It will no longer need to be answered because it will no longer need to be asked, not even sotto voce.