Affirmative Action: Re-visited- Education
The new economy and its global features have the potential to break apart and re-define old discriminatory issues, but not without affirmative action. Recently, the most profound problem in affirmative action decisions is that they affected those that needed help the most, the future’s employees and industry leaders, the students. Without policies that equalize and distribute academic access, we have no place to go but down, as education is a cornerstone in our society.
Advancing in society is highly related to education because of its capacity to build human capital. Affirmative action policies in education are still necessary in the promotion of diversity and knowledge of new technologies. Without policies that ensure students financial help and continuing education programs computers will be used inadequately. In essence, it seems getting your foot in the door of a University was much easier a few years ago, but the slashing of affirmative action policies in the school system has been devastating in recent years. An integral place to begin is at the University of Texas with the recent 1996 Hopwood v Texas decision because it redefined the policy of affirmative action not only in Texas but also in the lives of students in surrounding states. Its effect can be seen by casually scanning the room in an undergraduate course of Technology and Policy where a large demographic is drastically under-represented. This is not a good sign, as the effects of such judicial decisions will affect incoming students and retention at the public university level drastically unless re-evaluated. In addition, California's Proposition 209 or the California Civil Rights Initiative that passed in 1996 has also altered the standards of affirmative action and affected schools dramatically. For instance, Bagby, a professor and social scholar points out that, "Berkely reported a 57% drop in the number of applicants and a 40% decline in Hispanic senior who had been accepted for admission. At the law school in 1998, only 14 of the 792 accepted student were black and not one enrolled." (Bagby, 246). The result of this decision has affected many and is a modern challenge to the idea of affirmative action in education. According to scholar Paul Ong, "the effects of the recent policies are not known but, in the absence of strict enforcement of non-discrimination policies, it is very likely that further progress in eliminating employment, business, and educational disparities will be slow." (Ong, 21). These policies couldn’t have come at a worse time, as there is no time in today's world for disparity among people to mend slowly. The elimination of opportunities within the education system has weakened affirmative action and is one of the most important areas to reconsider.
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