Affirmative action

Affirmative action (U.S. English), or positive discrimination (British English), is a policy or a program providing access to systems for people of a minority group who have traditionally been discriminated against, with the aim of creating a more egalitarian society. This consists of access to education, employment, health care, or social welfare.

Purpose

"Affirmative" action originally began as a government remedy for past government and social injustices. Affirmative action exists to change the distribution of jobs, education, wealth, or other things, based on characteristics that usually include race, sex or gender, or ethnicity.

Related Topics:
Race - Sex - Gender - Ethnicity

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A certain minority group or gender may be less proportionately represented in an area, often employment or education, due predominantly, in the view of proponents, to past or ongoing discrimination against members of the group. The theory is that a simple adoption of meritocratic principles along the lines of race-blindness, gender-blindness, and so forth would not suffice to change the situation: regardless of overt principles, people already in positions of power were likely to hire people they already knew, and/or people from similar backgrounds; also, ostensible measures of merit might well be biased toward the same groups who were already empowered. In such a circumstance, proponents believe government action giving members of the minority group preferential treatment is necessary in order to achieve a proportionate distribution.

Related Topics:
Meritocratic - Race-blindness - Gender-blindness

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From its outset, affirmative action was seen as a transitional strategy, with the intent that in a period, variously estimated from a generation to a century, the effects of past discrimination would be sufficiently countered that such a strategy would no longer be necessary: the power elite would reflect the demographics of society at large.

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Though affirmative action in the U.S. is primarily associated with racial issues, the American civil rights movement originally gave as its purpose the correction of a history of oppression against all working-class and low-income people, and women have figured as prominently as ethnic minorities among its beneficiaries.

Related Topics:
American civil rights movement - Working-class - Women - Ethnic minorities

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