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Action
Affirmative action (or positive discrimination) is a policy or a program whose stated goal is to redress past or present discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity, generally concerning education, employment or seats in parliament and/or government. more...
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Purpose
Affirmative action began as a corrective measure for governmental and social injustices against demographic groups that have been said to be subjected to discrimination in areas such as employment and education. The stated goal of affirmative action is to counteract past and present discrimination sufficiently that the power elite will reflect the demographics of society at large, at which point such a strategy will no longer be necessary.
Some groups who are targeted for affirmative action are characterized by race, gender, ethnicity, or disability status. In India, the focus has mostly been on undoing caste discrimination. In South Africa, the focus has been primarily race-based and, to a lesser extent, sex-based discrimination. When members of targeted groups are actively sought or preferred, the reason given is usually that this is necessary to compensate for advantages that other groups are said to have had (such as through institutional racism or institutional sexism or historical circumstances).
The theory is that a simple adoption of meritocratic principles along the lines of race-blindness or gender-blindness—or simply relying on elites to behave fairly—will not suffice to change the situation for several reasons:
Discrimination practices of the past preclude the acquisition of 'merit' by limiting access to educational opportunities and job experiences.;
Ostensible measures of 'merit' may well be biased toward the same groups who are already empowered.;
Regardless of overt principles, people already in positions of power are likely to hire people they already know, and/or people from similar backgrounds.;
Controversy
Proponents of affirmative action generally advocate it either as a means to address past discrimination or to enhance racial, ethnic, gender, or other diversity. They may argue that the end result — a more diversified student body, police force or other group — justifies the means.
Opponents claim that it has undesirable side-effects and that it fails to achieve its goals. They argue that it can act as a form of discrimination, perpetrate new wrongs to counter old ones, and instill a sense of victimhood in the majority. It may increase racial tension and benefit the more privileged people within minority groups (such as middle to upper class blacks) at the expense of the disenfranchised within majority groups (such as poor whites). In the British 2001 Summer Of Violence Riots in Oldham, Bradford, Leeds and Burnley, one of the major complaints voiced in poor white areas was alleged discrimination in council funding which favoured minority areas. Some also claim that in college or professional admissions, it hurts those it intends to help, since it causes a "mismatch" effect by admitting minority students who are less qualified than their peers into more rigorous programs wherein they cannot keep up.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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