Affirmative action is a type of policy or program that attempts to increase the participation of certain groups within a society. In the United States, for example, such groups include African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, women, and people with disabilities. The purpose of affirmative action is to ensure that such groups have a fair chance to be employed at jobs and to be admitted to colleges and universities. Governments, employers, and educational institutions have used affirmative action policies and programs to increase the number of people from marginalized (excluded) groups in an organization and to better ensure their success.
There are different ways to apply affirmative action, and different programs have different goals. For example, a military organization could send recruiters to underfunded schools with mostly Black or Latino students, because such schools often have limited resources to inform students about a military career. Or a technology company could create a mentoring program for its women engineers. Relatively few women are engineers, and the male-dominated environment at many technology firms can be unsupportive of women employees. Or a university might consider an applicant’s racial identity when deciding whom to admit, to create a diverse student body and thus improve the learning environment.
Affirmative action exists because people of color, minority groups, and women have faced discrimination, often by a majority group made up of white people and men. Historically, members of these marginalized groups have not been hired for the top jobs or admitted to elite universities, even though they might be qualified. In the United States, racial and gender discrimination have been illegal since the 1960’s. But past discrimination still has an impact today, and people of color and women still face many unfair barriers. For example, when universities decide whom to admit, they often consider factors that are racially biased, although the racial bias may not be obvious. A university might favor students whose parents or grandparents attended that school, but many universities did not admit people of color in the past. Affirmative action has been aimed at counteracting such barriers.
Affirmative action policies, especially those that consider race in college admissions, have proven controversial. Supporters of affirmative action give different reasons for using it. Some want to remedy discrimination. Others wish to educate people from disadvantaged communities who later might work as doctors, lawyers, or other professionals in such communities. Many people reason that affirmative action creates more diverse institutions that are better at educating all students, providing national security, and conducting business. They argue that affirmative action results in a broader variety of viewpoints in colleges, greater trust and understanding between military ranks, and a wider variety of products and services for companies to sell. For supporters, affirmative action is a useful, if flawed, tool for creating greater opportunity in a society where discrimination still exists.
Those who oppose affirmative action argue that making decisions based on race or gender violates a person’s right to be treated as an individual, rather than part of a group. For opponents, affirmative action is unfair, especially to white people and men. Opponents of affirmative action have filed many lawsuits to try to end the practice. The U.S. Supreme Court, the country’s highest court, has decided many such cases.
Affirmative action in the United States began during the 1960’s. The first programs chiefly favored African Americans. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11246. It established affirmative action requirements for the federal government and for companies with government contracts. Since then, the U.S. government and larger government contractors have been required to use affirmative action. American universities and colleges adopted affirmative action voluntarily. In the 1960’s, the leaders of some elite, predominantly white, universities created the first policies that considered race in recruitment and admissions. They were inspired by the civil rights movement in the Southern States, and also pressured by student activists.
Many state and local governments, businesses, and schools in the United States have created their own affirmative action policies and programs. Affirmative action law generally has become stricter over the years, placing more limits on how organizations can apply affirmative action policies. Some U.S. states have banned affirmative action in hiring and college admissions. In 2023, after years of upholding affirmative action in college admissions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such practices at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina were unlawful. This decision set a precedent (guide or example) against using race as a basis for college admissions.
Other countries also have affirmative action policies and programs that favor racial minorities, women, and other groups, such as people with disabilities and members of lower castes (inherited social classes). Such countries include Brazil, Canada, India, Rwanda, and South Africa. In many countries with affirmative action programs, the national constitution gives the government responsibility for promoting equality, and affirmative action is considered “positive discrimination.” In contrast, the Constitution of the United States does not give the government such responsibility. Nor does U.S. law support positive discrimination. Rather, it largely forbids discrimination based on race, sex, and other legally “protected” characteristics, such as age, national origin, and religion. This legal environment has made it easier for opponents of affirmative action to challenge such policies in U.S. courts of law.
