Employment Discrimination and Affirmative Action: Are Affirmative Action Plans Helpful or Hurtful?

Prior to 1964, employment discrimination in the United States was rampant. African Americans, females and other minorities were treated cruelly, creating an appalling work environment. A number of confrontational events occurred in the 1950’s and 1960’s that caused minority leaders to push for civil rights changes. To combat the deplorable working and living conditions which had developed in the United States, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Under Title VII of this legislation, Congress provided that employees could not be discriminated against on the basis of neutral factors such as race, religion, sex, national origin, or color in the American workplace. The goal was to treat all workers with respect and fairness. Minority employees successfully started to pursue discrimination claims against employers who discriminated against minorities. In order to avoid lawsuits, many employers implemented affirmative action plans to employ and promote minorities and females. Preferential treatment of minorities under affirmative action plans then resulted in lawsuits by Caucasian males alleging reverse discrimination claims. Caucasian males claimed that affirmative action plans favoring minorities actually discriminated against white males on the basis of their race or color. The validity of affirmative action plans has been litigated for the past thirty years. This analysis examines the validity of affirmative action plans forty-five years after passage of the 1964 Act.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Hanson, Anthony

• Employment Discrimination

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/14721

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/14721