Workplace Diversity

Assignment Five

Chapter Eleven

Part One

Q. 2 Who has been Affirmative Action’s largest beneficiary? Why?

Ans. Affirmative Action has been very intense issue in last 3-4 decades. Yet many people and corporations support affirmative action.

Affirmative Action benefits many groups such as Blacks, Asian-Americans, Latinos, Veterans and Women of all races. Actually, the largest beneficiary of Affirmative Action is not Blacks but Caucasian women. Breaking the glass ceiling in many male dominated professions, has been one of the highest priorities of the workplace as it relates to affirmative action initiatives.

Originally, women weren’t even included in legislation attempting to level the playing field in education and employment. The first affirmative-action measure in America was an executive order signed by President Kennedy in 1961 requiring that federal contractors “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” In 1967, President Johnson amended this, and a subsequent measure included sex, recognizing that women also faced many discriminatory barriers and hurdles to equal opportunity. Meanwhile, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 only included sex in the list of prohibited forms of discrimination because conservative opponents of the legislation hoped that including it would sway moderate members of Congress to withdraw their support for the bill. Still, in a nation where white women and black people were once considered property — not allowed to own property themselves and not allowed to vote — it was clear to all those who were seeking fairness and opportunity that both groups faced monumental obstacles.

While people of color, individually and as groups, have been helped by affirmative action in the subsequent years, data and studies suggest women — white women in particular — have benefited disproportionately. According to one study,...