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Affirmative action ( U.S. English), also called positive discrimination or reverse discrimination ( British English) or employment equity, is conciously choosing people who have traditionally been discriminated against. This consists of preferential access to education, employment, health care, or social welfare.
In employment, affirmative action requires that institutions increase hiring and promotion of candidates of mandated groups. Critics often object to the use of racial quotas and gender quota s in affirmative action. Quotas are illegal in the United States, except when a judge issues an order for a specific institution to make up for extreme past discrimination. There is dispute over whether this de jure illegality prevents de facto quotas.
== Start proposed neutral descriptive section
Affirmative Action programs always assume that the population percentage of ethnic, racial, and sexual groups in a society should also be the same economic percentage (or "share") of high status jobs, wealth, and power for preferred (sometimes called "protected") groups. Any discrepency is presumed to be the result of "bad" discrimination favoring non-preferred groups. This type of program is intended to move those distributions to the point where preferred ethnicities, races, and/or sexes hold the same proportion of desirable assets as their percentage of the population. Failure to demonstrate clear movement toward this goal is punished, usually by economic penalty. Government agencies require annual reports of such change from all of their direct contractors and the sub-contractors of those contractors. Organizations which receive, directly or indirectly, Federal funds are also required to report and to change those proportions in their workforce or student body.
There is strong competition for being included in the Government's preferred list since doing so means a significantly better economic future for a group's members. This also generates inter-group conflict and hostility. Preferred groups tend to support these programs while other groups tend to not support them.
In the USA, Affirmative Action only applies at transition points -- times when individuals are changing their employment or enrollment. Thus it predominately falls on working age adults who hope to improve their lot through employment or educational change. Established (and powerful) people are not required to redistribute their wealth, power or social position, but are included in calculations of outcomes. This focuses the greatest impact on young disapproved people while maintaining the status and position of established members of the same ethnic and racial group. In the USA, this process was established by Presidential Decree in March of 1961 by President Kennedy and has been changed significantly over the decades since.
The term "Affirmative" Action is a claim that discriminating in favor of one group does not necessarily mean discriminating against other groups. The Constitution of the USA as well as numerous laws outlaw discrimination AGAINST a group based on their race or ethnicity. Presumably, research showing negative outcomes for non-preferred people would mean these programs would have to be ended. This program has overwhelming support among members of the Government. Much time has been spent attempting to show that these "goals" are not quotas . The government of the USA has accepted this distinction and continues Affirmative Action up to the present time.
== end proposed description
Affirmative Action exists to change the distribution of jobs, education, wealth, or other things, based on characteristics that usually include race, sex, and/or ethinicity.
A certain minority group or gender may be underrepresented in an arena, often employment or academia, perhaps due to past or ongoing discrimination against members of the group. In such circumstances, one school of thought maintains that unless this group is concretely helped to achieve a more substantial representation, it will have difficulty gaining the critical mass and acceptance in that role, even if discrimination against the group is eradicated. For this reason, it is suggested that more effort must be made to recruit persons from that background, train them, and if necessary, lower the entrance requirements for them.
Proponents of affirmative action argue that affirmative action is the best way to correct a history of discrimination against a minority group. With a wide- and long-term perspective, affirmative action may be seen as redressing an otherwise unfair balance of historical wrongs and institutionalised disadvantages.
Opponents view affirmative action as reverse discrimination against otherwise qualified people in the majority. Some believe that as we progress toward a more open society, affirmative action is unnecessary and that racial or gender discrimination is becoming less of an issue. Many say that affirmative action sends a message to minorities that they are not capable enough to be considered on their own merits.
Though affirmative action in the US is primarily associated with racial issues, the American civil rights movement originally gave as its purpose the correction of a history of oppression against all working-class and low-income people.
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