There is a perception among some that affirmative action results in quotas and reverse discrimination. Discuss the justification for affirmative action and whether affirmative action indeed results in quotas and reverse discrimination

Answer 1

Soon after the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted for the purpose of eliminating much of the discrimination in employment, Executive Order 11246 created affirmative action. While Title VII served to regulate and prohibit discrimination after its enactment, affirmative action served to aide businesses in remedying past and current injustices whether intentional or not. Essentially, affirmative action required a company to compare its workforce to the relevant job market and where under-representation of any protected group or groups was evident, use permissible preferences in hiring to remedy the injustices. One important point is that a company need not achieve a perfect balance or percentage but must evidence a good faith effort to achieve proper balance. As long as the plan created preferences that were justified by a compelling governmental interest, the plan was narrowly tailored and was temporary, the plan permitted disparate treatment to achieve its goal.
Unfortunately, two negative byproducts have emerged; quotas and reverse discrimination. Both of these circumstances occur when an affirmative action plan is poorly written and/or poorly administered or a company simply doesn't understand its obligations under the law. Rather than analyzing the true need and application of permissible preferences, some companies simply created quotas in which qualifications and appropriate company policy was abandoned and a blind reservation of spots was created to make the numbers or percentages look good. This is blatantly a wrong interpretation of affirmative action and is expressly made illegal. Reverse discrimination occurs when someone in the majority believes that they were a victim of disparate treatment becausesomeone less qualified was afforded an opportunity simply to appease an affirmative action plan. If the affirmative action plan was indeed valid and necessary, there is no reverse discrimination, however, the mere presumption that a company must hire members of a certain group simply to stay out of trouble, or should the affirmative action plan be poorly written and therefore illegal, reverse discrimination occurs and remedies for the injured party are available.
Chapter 9
HARASSMENT
Test Bank Questions, 5e

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS