Law - Affirmative Action Policies - Essay Example

Affirmative Action Policies Affirmative action policies are the positive dealings that are undertaken with a lot of certainty and conscientiousness by organizations in an attempt to overcome past challenges, practices and barriers to one and the same employment opportunities (Schmidt, 2008). This aims at achieving full and fair participation of all members of the society, who were initially not fully utilized in the work place, and negatively impacted by the policies (Schmidt, 2008). According to Schmidt (2008), equal opportunities in employment give a guide on employment of individuals with no consideration of race, sex, color, national origin, religious creed, ancestry, marital status, mental disability, sexual orientation, age, physical disability or learning disability (Schmidt, 2008).

Therefore, organizations will not demand for genetic information from its employees or job applicants. The demand for such information leads to discrimination against the person on the foundation of hereditary information in an employment situation (Schmidt, 2008). Furthermore, anyone with a previous criminal conviction will not be discriminated or aligned with the crime in employment conditions. It is therefore, the goal and purpose of action policies to ensure equal opportunities to all.Organizational policies, which entail employment applications, job specifications, job structuring, job qualifications, recruitment practices, counseling, grievances procedures, layoffs and terminations should be undertaken without discrimination of any form (Sander, 2004).

In order to ensure that there is no discrimination; affirmative action policies will help monitor the whole process. The hiring difficulties that are experienced by the older persons and those who are physically disabled are recognized by these policies through establishment of a plan of action that eliminates employment obstacles and actively recruit members from the discriminated minority group (Sander, 2004). This is aimed at protecting such group of persons and achieving their full participation in the workplace and therefore, such policies are still needed.

Affirmative action policies give favored treatments to the minorities in the society and should be retained because of the desirability of diversity in the society (Sander, 2004). Such diversity will be completely lost if it is left to probability. Through these policies, the disadvantaged in the society will get a boost and thus be able to stand on their own. Furthermore, affirmative action policies represent people at areas of learning and employment, they may never have considered otherwise.

There is also need to break the stereotypes in the society in order to attain a society free of discrimination. Affirmative action policies set the only way to break these stereotypes. Lastly, it is through the affirmative action policies that the minorities are compensated for the year of oppression (Sander, 2004).On the other hand, the giving of preferred treatments to the minorities should be eliminated since this action leads to a reversed discrimination, since there will be a discrimination against the majority.

With the affirmative action policies in place, there will be lowered standards of accountability that is required of employees in order to have better performance (Sander, 2004). Therefore, workers employed on this basis are over and over again ill-equipped to handle the work they are assigned to and thus leading to a society that is color-blinded.Furthermore the saying that the minorities need an affirmative action in order for them to succeed is so condescending to them. Affirmative action policies have weaknesses in the sense that once enacted, they become tough to remove even when the fundamental discrimination is removed (Sander, 2004).

ReferencesSander, R. (2004). A Systemic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools. Stanford Law Review : 367–484.Schmidt, P. (2008). Scholars Mount Sweeping Effort to Measure Affirmative Action in Higher Education. Chronicle of Higher Education, 54 (19): A19