Race-based affirmative action refers to a policy that enforces remedies against discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin. The implementation of this policy within college admissions processes has been a highly controversial topic. There are many individuals who are against race-based affirmative action because of the way institutions cater to minorities rather than the majority. These opponents tend to view the policy as a form of “reverse discrimination.” In contrast, race-based affirmative action has many supporters who believe the policy promotes the social inclusion of minorities, rather than being implemented for discriminatory reasoning. On the political side of education, implementing race-based affirmative action in college admissions is very effective due to its approach to three core principles: ignoring prior discrimination, remediating to the products of past discrimination and prevent future discrimination. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Some may wonder, where did affirmative action begin? Well, the concept of affirmative action made its first appearance during President John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10925 in 1961, which created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The initial philosophy of affirmative action was to force institutions to comply with the nondiscrimination mandate of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was created to combat racial discrimination that existed in the workplace. In subsequent years, additional factors, such as gender and disability, were protected by this policy. After the introduction, the policy trajectory shifted towards both education sectors (public and private). However, the emergence of race-based affirmative action within educational settings did not become vital until the Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. of Topeka, which occurred in 1954. Brown v. Board not only allowed minorities and the majority to attend the same schools regardless of race; furthermore, it created a chain reaction in which black students were granted access to the same academic institutions as their white counterparts. The racial integration of colleges and universities had been decided by the Supreme Court before the Brown v. Board; However, equal access to quality education and public discourse on race have come into sharper focus with the Brown ruling. Schools, therefore, have taken it upon themselves to implement race-based affirmative action by reserving spots for the admission of minority students within their student body. This case set the precedent for many future affirmative action cases. For example, a race-based affirmative action case that emerged after Brown v. Board fu Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which occurred in 1978. Regents v. Bakke was a Supreme Court case that sought to challenge race-based affirmative action within post-secondary institutions. Many court cases challenging affirmative action have been unsuccessful because most colleges and universities support affirmative action. In this case, the white applicant, Allan Bakke, twice applied to the Medical School of the University of California at Davis, both times it was rejected. Since the university has followed an actionaffirmative, 16 places out of 100 were reserved for minority candidates. Bakke, then, filed a lawsuit against the institution because he believed their admissions process violated the Equal Protection Clause. Also Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger were two very important cases dealing with race-based affirmative action. Grutter and Gratz subsequently filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan over the college admissions process. The university's main goal was to have a student body composed of students with diverse backgrounds as the best way to understand and learn from each other. However, the University of Michigan not only followed the policy of affirmative action, but the university, unfairly, used race as the sole determining factor in admitting its students. A final case involving race-based affirmative action is Parents Involved in Community Schools v. School District No. 1 in Seattle, which occurred in 2007. Parents Involved in Community Schools is a non-profit organization made up of parents of students who have been, or might have been, affected by the Seattle School District admissions process. The organization filed a lawsuit against the school district challenging the constitutionality of the admissions process. Students were granted admission to the school of preference only if their contribution to school racial balance was positive. Later in this essay I will discuss the three core principles of race-based affirmative action. Race-based affirmative action is very effective in the college admissions process because it overrides previous discrimination against minorities. Many mistakenly interpret this compensatory policy as a discriminatory practice against the majority, who are not satisfied by this policy. For countless years, whites have historically been recognized for racially discriminating against minority groups, particularly African Americans. This historical discrimination is a legitimate reason why minorities perform lower academically than their white counterparts and need compensation through affirmative action. Supporters of race-based affirmative action encourage its implementation as a means of compensation for all previous discriminatory provisions that were placed against them such as slavery, black codes, and Jim Crow laws. These previous failures cause minorities to fall behind those of the majority. in key areas such as income, health and housing, which ultimately impact education. All of these key areas have been strategically rigged to keep minority groups at a disadvantage. For example, statistics show that whites who belong to the highest percentage of families with higher incomes are more likely to be admitted to an elite school than participants of a minority group from a family with lower incomes. According to the Washington Post, in 2014, the College Board announced that they are focusing less on the timed essay and vocabulary portion of the SAT, and more on accommodating all types of income-earning families. This gives students the same opportunity to get the desired score to get into their desired college or university in the future. College Board statistics have shown that families with high incomes tend to score higher on the SAT. Students from high-income families typically have parents who have a large amount of money, obviously, and some sort of college degree orhigher title. Students from low-income families typically have parents with less money and a high school diploma or less. According to College Board statistics, students who come from families where their parents have a college degree tend to perform better on the SAT than students with parents with a high school diploma. Additionally, students who had the opportunity to take preparatory courses before taking the SAT tended to score higher on the test. According to the College Board, students who were given the PSAT before taking the actual SAT tended to receive a higher score than students who did not receive the privilege of a test or preparatory course. Additionally, parents of students in low-income housing may not even be able to afford the SAT prep course once, let alone twice. This is evidence that institutions should lend a hand to minorities, who typically reside in low-income families and have lower-quality parental education, because these students are more disadvantaged as a result. These major setbacks for minorities are important issues that require a government response. By implementing race-based affirmative action within colleges and universities, the government would reverse previous discrimination by ensuring minority students have a fair chance to showcase their potential despite all the odds stacked against them. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, eight states do not allow affirmative action for college applicants. Affirmative action really shouldn't be of much concern to the majority, given that they reap so many benefits from their ancestors. Most student bodies at elite schools are made up of primarily white, affluent students. Then there are minority students who come from less affluent backgrounds who typically can't even afford to attend their dream school, or a school of that stature. These states that are banning race-based affirmative action are leading me to believe that they intentionally want to eliminate the one possible thing that could make minorities overcome their disadvantages and rise up. The small percentage of reserved spaces that institutions have for minority applicants is not as large as to be questioned as much as it is. I believe that individuals in the majority who want to remove race-based affirmative action only feel so strongly about it because it is a policy that their people do not directly benefit from. What they don't understand, however, is that even if minorities can benefit directly, institutions do too. I have no sense that colleges and universities implement race-based affirmative action for the well-being of minorities and to see them thrive. But they do this to pretend that their student body is diverse, which ultimately, fortunately, benefits minorities given preferential treatment and the majority. Second, implementing race-based affirmative action in college admissions is highly effective due to its approach to remediating the products of past discrimination. Previous discrimination, as I have stated previously, has put minority groups at an extreme disadvantage. The government believed that by integrating schools, they balanced the opportunities for both white and minority students to receive a quality education and compete in the future. During President Lyndon B. Johnson's 1965 commencement address at Howard Universityexplained the general reasoning behind affirmative action: “But freedom is not enough. You don't erase the scars of the centuries by saying: now you are free to go where you want, do what you want and choose the leaders you prefer. You don't take a person who has been shackled for years and free them, bring them to the starting line of a race and then say "you are free to compete with everyone else" and still believe that you are completely fair. This is the next and most profound phase of the battle for civil rights. We seek not only freedom but also opportunity – not only legal equity but human capacity – not only equality as a right and as a theory, but equality as a fact and as an outcome.” Therefore, people who come from more difficult circumstances and have more difficulties should be treated similarly to people who have it all together. This is why implementing affirmative action is necessary because it benefits minorities, who are the students who tend to struggle the most and who are more likely to come from a less privileged background. You cannot expect to give both groups the same treatment and for the less privileged to have the same opportunities to succeed. Overall, race-based affirmative action, in essence, gives minorities the opportunity to acclimate themselves to the real world so that they have a fair chance to compete with the majority who have had an overabundance of years.have the advantage. The mistreatment of minority individuals by whites is to blame for the historical inequalities that continue to exist today. The legal acceptance of racial discrimination has left room for the majority to remain ahead of minorities. If such preferential treatment of minority groups did not occur, then all paths of politics, profession, and education would remain white-dominated. Furthermore, previous discrimination placed against minority groups has now manifested itself in so many different areas, such as socioeconomic deprivation, social exclusion and stereotyping. Finally, the practice of race-based affirmative action is effective because it will gradually open up how minorities can achieve equality in the future. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the enrollment rate for minority students ages 18 to 24 has reached 41.7 percent, a huge leap from the 15.7 percent enrollment rate recorded in 1976. have made notable improvements since implementing this policy. Among African American students admitted to a four-year college in 1996, 39 percent graduated within six years. For African American students who entered a four-year college in 2008, the graduation rate increased by two percentage points. The graduation rate for Hispanic Americans increased from 45.7% to 53.5% over the same period, which irrefutably demonstrates improvement. Furthermore, by implementing this preferential act, it would force educational facilities to diversify their student bodies. Many schools perceive “diversity” as having a student body where racial proportions do not reach extremes. For preparatory purposes, it would be ideal for undergraduate students to be taught in an atmosphere similar to the real-world environment they will be dealing with at the beginning of their careers. To tie this into an analogy, it's along the same lines as taking a new goldfish and putting it in water. It is strongly recommended, when purchasing a new fish, to place the water bag, with the fish inside, in the desired body of water so that the water temperature familiar to the fish can adapt to the temperature.