The Debate on Affirmative Action

The ongoing debate of affirmative action in higher education is a very tricky subject, because both sides are greatly affected whether it's taken away or not. There needs to be a way to find a "happier" medium and find a better solution than discrimination.

One major issue that have people against affirmative action is that colleges are required to have a certain amount of minorities enrolled at their college in order to maintain a more diversified campus. In other words, they must fill quotas for students who may not necessarily be qualified the most qualified, which takes away the opportunity from students who most likely a better candidate for that particular school. A student should not get accepted into college simply because of their skin color; there are many more important qualities in a person that should be considered rather than whether that person is minority or not. An issue with this though is that "affirmative action is seen by many whites as nothing but a fancy term for racial quotas designed to give minorities an unfair break." (This was said by Peter Katel, author of an in-depth report on affirmative action.)

While some people feel that it allows for minorities to have an "unfair break" getting into college, when non-minorities have to work twice as hard, it makes me think: would minorities get accepted into college nearly as much with out affirmative action? With out the law to push colleges to achieve a more diverse school, who knows who they would actually accept. Some schools currently don't have affirmative action, and some do, so thats why I look forward to continuing my research on why this happens.