Affirmative Action
In the last decade, affirmative action has stirred fierce debate and repeated legal, administrative, and political challenges in some parts of the world, mainly the United States of America. The term is also often misconstrued. However, it still remains a relevant topic of discussion in the 21st Century. Its existing policies are crucial for dismantling employment and higher learning institutional practices that limit opportunities for women and other marginalized ethnic minorities.
Persistence of unfairness and discrimination in education and employment sectors, especially for women and other ethnic minorities across the world, still calls for the entrenchment of affirmative action in these sectors. It behooves our society to proactively initiate efforts in improving educational and employment opportunities for women and ethnic groups of our society. This is due to prevailing discrimination practices against such groups hence the need for employee support programs, outreach campaigns, procedures, and policies, that offer limited preferences to minorities and women in job hiring and admittance to educational institutions ultimately improving opportunities for them (Hirschman, Berrey, & Rose-greenland, 2016).
Affirmative action in educational institutions has sought to raise the number of women and minority students, especially in the third world countries, more so sub-Saharan Africa, thus ensuring that selection and decision procedures for admission to such institutions are fair. It remains a fundamental tool for guaranteeing gifted students of all backgrounds and gender to access quality higher education. This has seen far-reaching gains for the women and minority groups in the education sector in the last decade. Due to affirmative action, there has been increased diversity resulting in constructive learning results for all students, including an enhanced capability to take the perception of others and participation in political dealings.
Besides, affirmative action has contributed to better decision-making, hence bringing a better perspective in organizations within our society. It permits organizations to utilize holistic reviews while considering race and gender as one of the major elements facilitating the appropriate evaluation of employees’ performance. Further to this, affirmative action enhances employees’ chances of receiving fair treatment since it comprehensively considers key factors of evaluation rather than overlooking important issues.
Similarly, organizations that adopt favorable affirmative action policies and procedures protect their employees against discrimination, threats, intimidation, coercion, and harassment while undertaking their duties. It enables employees to freely participate in investigating an unlawful incidence within their organization without fear of being laid off. Additionally, employees can also file press complaints to the management and get justice.
On the other hand, affirmative action in organizations can lead to replacing qualified, experienced managers and engineers with unqualified, inexperienced managers in the provision of services. It further lowers employment standards since, in some cases, it doesn’t value ability, achievement, and merit hence killing the idea of hiring people purely on merit.
This said and done, it is important to approach this with extreme caution to avoid overemphasis on these actions, which may letter bring negative impacts as is the case for boy child in sub-Saharan Africa where enrolment of girls in schools and higher learning institutions is advanced at the expense of boys. Moreover, affirmative action should continue because it assists in enhancing the highest level of diversity. If an organization’s decisions are left to the discretion of bad leaders, then it can easily deviate from adhering to its core values and goals. Hence Affirmative action regulations help to set correct standards for employers to exercise their authorities.