Affirmative Action In the early 1960s the concept of affirmative action was introduced. Affirmative Action was put in place to provide minority opportunities, regardless of an individual's color, race, sex, religion, or national origin. With affirmative action, classes of people who in the past may have been excluded from certain rights would now have opportunities such as jobs, housing, and education. Racism created inequality that made it necessary to enact affirmative action laws. Enabling a diverse community of individuals, affirmative action requires that workplaces and even schools hire and accept students based on meeting their quota. This policy remains a controversial issue as the Supreme Court upholds issues in Michigan even today. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Before implementing affirmative action, it is not a difficult task to remember back in history where “separate but equal” was said to be constitutional. The case Plessy v. Ferguson upheld the constitutional right to segregation in public facilities, including schools, but under the “separate but equal” doctrine. This doctrine was eventually ruled out when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional after Brown v. The Board of Education. Following the Brown v. The Board of Education, schools were no longer allowed to be segregated because “separate but equal” did not teach students anything other than separate is NOT equal. Decades later, affirmative action was put into place under the Equal Protection Clause, ensuring that everyone has equal opportunities. However, Michigan voters have recently been on the fence about requiring Michigan's public universities to use affirmative action and want to ban the idea that everyone has equal opportunity. Michigan voters are voting against affirmative action in Michigan and don't want public universities to take a person's race, gender or national origin into account. In 2006, the proposal to allow “all preferences based on sex and race in public education, public employment and public procurement” was supported. However, the case Schuette v. Coalition was filed to defend affirmative action. This case addressed whether allowing admission to public universities to prohibit discrimination and treatment based on sex, race, and national origin violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 2012, this action was declared unconstitutional by the court of appeals because it was discriminatory and unfair. What others fear is that Michigan universities will become segregated because of their admissions policies. Given that universities, including public ones in Michigan, emphasize the idea of a diverse population, without the requirement of affirmative action, it is a great possibility that the population is not that diverse. This is a possibility because not everyone of different races or national origins is equally intelligent. Although an appeals court decision in 2012 declared Michigan's racial admissions policy unconstitutional, the Supreme Court reversed its decision as of April 2014. This, however, does not guarantee diversity at public universities. It was also seen that when the proposal was first adopted, the percentage of first-year black and Hispanic students at the University of Michigan dropped from 12.15% to 9.54%. By not using affirmative action students are not treated fairly and the.
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