The Future of Affirmative Action: A Look at Unfair Equal Employment Opportunities and Other Biases

The country's politicians finally realized that blacks and women were unfairly kept from equal employment opportunities (among many other biases). So, Congress undertook civil rights legislation beginning in 1964. One Act in 1964 was not enough, so President Johnson produced an executive order in 1965 which was designed to be a sort of amendment to the act, and which was specifically aimed at ending so-called "inequality" in schools and at the workplace. This was the birth of what we now call "Affirmative Action". "Affirmative Action is a policy designed to create a nondiscriminatory environment for the management of human resources and the distribution of economic benefits...It means taking a second look to be fair to everyone who applies for a job or admission to college." (Anderson PG). This and subsequent bills not only enabled African-Americans to find equal job and educational opportunities, but it also allowed no discrimination because of gender. Women were now empowered in seeking jobs and pay equal to men.

More about opportunities for women shortly. But, we need to discuss whether Civil Rights legislation and Affirmative Action have done everything they were supposed to accomplish. The answer, in many cases, is either No, or Not Yet. It has now been more than fort-two years since the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, became law. And, many people will agree that much still needs to be done. It seems, however, that while Affirmative action is still being scrupulously (in most cases) observed in the American work-place, blacks still feel they are not nearly as well taken care of as women. It is still a color bias, not a gender bias. It is a sad fact that, while millions of women are now employed, they are represented in only 48% of all managerial jobs. Women still earn less than men- about 72% of what men earn in similar jobs.