Affirmative Action :: essays research papers

When people talk about the civil rights movement, the first thing that comes to mind is the famous speech â€Å"I have a dream† by Martin Luther King. His dream in short was to have equality among human beings. For the past thirty years, this country has been revolutionizing humanitarianism because there is greater concern for human welfare than one hundred years ago. The revolution began during the 1960’s, and during that era this country was drastically involved in changing the civil rights of minority groups. From this concern, a program called affirmative action evolved. Like other civil right movements, the affirmative action movement was implemented to promote equality. Like some Americans, I am strangely confused when anyone talks about affirmative action. The reason that I have such confusion is the way people word the term affirmative action. If you ask one person who is in favor of affirmative action, his or her response is going to be different from someone who is against it. So when I am asked what I think about affirmative action, my answer seems to be twisted because I really don’t know what affirmative action is. The only exposure I have had to the term affirmative action is that which is taught in the classroom. Since this was such a controversial subject, the scope was very narrow, mostly terms. My key understanding is that of a definition, which I can hardly recall. I don’t know whether affirmative action is a law or if it is a subset of a bunch of different laws that were passed during the civil rights movement. I am also unaware if people protected under this program like the special treatment if there is any. My attempts to answer the question of what I think I know start with the idea that since affirmative action evolved from the civil rights movement, its aim is to protect certain minority groups as well as women. I think that the idea is used in a business context because there are other discriminatory laws in place to protect outside of work. I can remember from past schooling that there was a Supreme Court case that a white male sued a school institution because he was anti discriminated against because the school had a affirmative action program in place. I would like to know exactly what affirmative action is and then decide a stance on whether I support or oppose the use of affirmative action programs.