Is affirmative action still needed?

Sami Ahmed

Affirmative action is the policy when a person of a historically political/social non-dominate group gets preference in getting admission/easier access to education. Affirmative action is a very controversial topic these days, and people are debating whether it is still needed and whether or not we have overcame many of the prejudice that made it hard for underrepresented groups to get access to higher education. Yes affirmative action makes it easier for a person from a race that is underrepresented in a university to get in, but at the same time if a university picks a person due to his/her race and denies another person because of his/her race isn’t it reverse racism? Some would argue that universities should look at a person’s economic background rather than their race. People from poorer backgrounds tend to get poorer education due to their local schools are in worse condition then people from richer neighborhoods. This would mean that a student from a poor school would get an unfair disadvantage in their education that could end them up with a lower SAT score.

Students have mixed feelings about this topic. People from overrepresented groups of either race/gender typically have negative feelings towards affirmative action during the admission process in universities. However, once these students are accepted within the university they tend to like the benefits of having a more diverse campus in their university due to affirmative action. For example, Georgia Tech has a roughly 70% male population, and a low 30% female population. Guys in Georgia Tech tend to complain about the small amount of women in campus, as explained in this video:



According to a source in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “statistical analyses of the academic effects of affirmative action have produced results that challenge as much as reassure supporters of affirmative action in higher education. But the results of our research do not mean that affirmative action is necessarily detrimental to the academic interests of minority students and should be abandoned. Rather, the results imply that as currently administered by selective institutions, the application of race-sensitive admissions criteria appears to create a stigmatizing setting and should be reconsidered. Indeed, if the way affirmative action is administered and framed can be changed so as to mitigate the stigma now being created, its negative academic effects might disappear.”