Affirmative Action

Due to affirmative action many white applicants of jobs, colleges, and other organizations have experienced some type of reverse discrimination or as some may call it positive discrimination. Reverse discrimination is unfair treatment of members of majority groups in college admissions or employment intended to remedy earlier discrimination against minorities. According to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act an employer cannot discriminate based on an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. This act is being abused all the time because employer’s feel like they have to fulfill their quotas so their organization has diversity, but this can also affect the majority groups of getting hired or promoted.

In order to create diversity in the colleges or businesses, admissions or employers try to fulfill their quotas by admitting or hiring minorities bypassing the majority groups. According to Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer, The U.S. Supreme Court sided with white firefighters in a workplace discrimination lawsuit. In the split 5-4 vote, a majority of the justices ruled that the city of New Haven, Connecticut fire department improperly threw out the results of promotional exams that officials said left very few minorities qualified. At the time of the 2003 test, 53% of the city's firefighters, 63% of lieutenants and 86% of captains were white. African Americans were 30% of the firefighters, 22 % of lieutenants and 4% of captains. So the fire department felt they needed to be more diverse. When the test was administered 118 people took the tests; 56 passed. Nineteen of the top scorers were eligible for promotion to 15 open lieutenant and captain positions. Based on the test results, the city said that no minorities would have been eligible for lieutenant, and two Hispanics would have been eligible for captain. The city decided not to certify the results and issued no promotions because not enough minorities qualified. The white firefighters...