“Affirmative action” means positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded. When those steps involve preferential selection — selection on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity — affirmative action generates intense controversy. Advocates of affirmative action argue that some form of preferential treatment is essential to break down long-standing patterns of discrimination against minorities and women so that employment patterns will more accurately reflect the pluralistic nature of American society. On the contrary, critics of affirmative action claim that it is “reverse discrimination” and a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution for seeing people in terms of groups and not as individuals.

This thesis aims to analyze how affirmative action has functioned in the field of higher education and employment in the United States, what consequences it has caused, and whether its principles can be justified. This study also shows how judicial rulings of the Supreme Court in two important cases, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) and Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), have transformed the noble ideal of equal opportunity for all individuals into the much more problematic goal of equal results for all groups.

Finally, the study comes to a conclusion with a ringing call for all Americans to end affirmative action and to reclaim the nation’s shared values of equal protection under the law, without reference to race, color, gender, or national origin.
Table of Contents


Introduction…………………………………………………………… 1


Chapter One
Historical and Legal Background……………………………………. 10


Chapter Two
The Insuperable Problems of Affirmative Action……………………. 25


Chapter Three
Affirmative Action in Higher Education…………………………….. 51

Chapter Four
Affirmative Action in Employment and the Labor Market………….. 78


Chapter Five
Conclusion…………………………………………………………… 102


Bibliography…………………………………………………………. 111
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