some notes on affirmative action and its origin

1. Kule Ashirafu Masudi
2022-08-13074
Department: Education
Program: PhD
Philosophy of Knowledge
Lecturer: Dr. Moses

2. .Its a policy or a program that seeks to redress past discrimination
through active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education
and employment.
Technically affirmative action refers to policies designed to ensure equal
opportunity.
Its based on the assumption that our society has not yet achieved
equality of opportunity,
and that women and minorities remain disadvantaged with respect to
education and employment in comparison with dominant group
members

3.  Affirmative Action is a program that was designed to promote educational and
vocational access for underprivileged minority groups.
 The term affirmative action refers to a policy aimed at increasing workplace or
educational opportunities for underrepresented parts of society.
 These programs are commonly implemented by businesses and governments by
taking individuals' race, sex, religion, or national origin into account
 Affirmative action focuses on demographics with historically low representation
in leadership, professional, and academic roles and is often considered a means of
countering discrimination against particular groups

4.  Affirmative action, also known as “positive discrimination’’
 is a government policy that is designed to help minorities and
disadvantaged groups in finding employment.
 getting admissions at universities, and obtaining housing.
 It was originally created to offer disadvantaged groups a boost and
increase diversity in communities, the workplace, and learning
institutions.

5.  Justification for Affirmative Action
 Boosting the education of disadvantaged students
 Promoting education and work on a communal level
 It promotes diversity.
 To eliminate socioeconomic differences
 It stops stereotypes.
 It allows people to chase dreams
 to break the glass ceiling.
 To reverses societal loss.

6.  Affirmative action helps promote social mobility
 Affirmative action helps colleges take steps toward greater
equity in admissions.
Etc

7.  Affirmative Action is no new phenomenon globally since it
could even be traced as far back from the 1930’s in USA
in relation to labor policy concerning black and minority
groups.
 The term "affirmative action" was first used in the United
States. It first appeared in Executive Order 1925, which
was signed by President John F. Kennedy.
on March 6, 1961, and it was used to refer to measures to
achieve non-discrimination.

8.  His(President John F. Kennedy ) aim was to redress the
discrimination that still persisted inspite of civil rights laws
and constitutional guarantees that had been put in place.
 The order instructed federal contractors to take affirmative
action steps to ensure that applicants were treated equally
without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national
origin.
 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 extended Kennedy’s order to
nongovernmental contractors, making nearly all
employment discrimination illegal on the basis of sex, color,
religion or any other ground.

9.  In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive
Order 11246 which required federal contractors to take
"affirmative action" to hire without regard to race, religion
and national origin.
 In 1968, gender was added to the anti-discrimination list.
 Matching procedures in other countries are also known as
reservation in India positive discrimination in the United
Kingdom and employment equity in Canada

10. a) Affirmative action is intended to promote equal opportunity.
b) It is often instituted in government and educational settings to
ensure that minority groups within a society are included in all
programs.
c) The justification for affirmative action is that it helps to
compensate for past discrimination, persecution or exploitation by
the ruling class of a culture, and to address existing discrimination.

11.  Affirmative action has been used in Ghana since
independence to Address gender and regional imbalances in
access to education, health, work and politics.
 While it has had some successes, particularly in improving
the male female ratios in primary education
 it has been less effective for improving women's
representation in political and public life..

12.  The California Civil Rights Initiative--prohibits the use of
race, sex, color, ethnicity and national origin for
discrimination against or preferential treatment of any person.
 In Ghana the 1992 Constitution prohibits discrimination by
race, class, color , ethnicity, sex , religion etc

13.  Reverse discrimination
 Lack of meritocracy
 Demeaning true achievement

14.  Weak Affirmative Action--eliminating formal barriers,
increasing minority representation in an applicant pool,
using race as a tie-breaker
 Strong Affirmative Action--reverse discrimination,
preferences, set asides.

15.  Pure plans or opportunity enhancement plans; informing and
motivating employers to recruit and promote women
especially in the sectors and categories in question ;
 . Promoting the active participation of women in decision
making bodies.
 . Strong preferential treatment or Quota plans (most used)

16.  Quotas specify that a proportion of a minority group must be
selected for an interview or job.
regardless if they are less qualified
reverse discrimination
What is your opinion of quotas?

17.  Instead of using a strict quota system with a fixed
percentage of female candidates (or a minimum
number of candidates of either sex), some parties
are now establishing through custom or unofficial
rules, methods of selecting candidates that is
almost identical to applying a quota.

18.  Norway (although not a member state), where all political parties
aim to include 50% of women in their party lists, despite many
not having an established quota system.
 The use of quotas alone is not sufficient to ensure high levels of
female political representation, often other forms of affirmative
action is needed, especially concerning party politics
 Some Scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Norway have
an informal agreement to apply the "zipper system" (alternating
the sexes on the party list).
 The zipper system is very popular in Sweden, with five parties
using it to achieve a gender balance. Its success can be seen in the
high level of female parliamentarians returned over elections over
the past 15 years.

19. • Justification for reverse discrimination is somewhat ambiguous.
based on retributive justice (past injustices must be paid for)
• Example:
 women discriminated against for a long time
 time to reverse the trend
 consequently they deserve preferential treatment

20.  Employment
 Education
 Equal pay
 Leadership
 Ownership of wealth.
 Distributive Justice Supports (AA)

21. • Rewards (jobs and pay) should be allocated fairly among all
groups.
• It is difficult to determine objective merit when roles and industries
are dominated by certain genders or races.
• Fair outcomes rather than fair
procedures should be
paramount.

22.  Role Models
 Need to Break
Stereotypes
 Equal Results
 Compensation for
Past Injustices
 Compensation from
those who
benefited
 Diversity as a
Primary Good
 Anti-Meritocratic
Position

23.  Reverse
Discrimination is
Still Wrong
 Perpetuates Victim
Syndrome
 Encourages
Mediocrity and
Incompetence
 Unjustly Shifts
Burden of Proof
 Meritocracy
 Slippery Slope
 It Just Doesn’t work

24.  Decisions based on gender and race
promote stereotyping and reinforce prejudice.
prompt white-male backlash against perceived prejudice.

25.  social injustice
 Economic injustice
 Wage inequality
 Racial discrimination
 Sex segregation
 Education wage premium
 Gender pay gap
 Racial gaps in education

26. a) Economically inefficient
b) Unfair to those not selected
c) Rewards an individual for membership in a disadvantaged
group, even though the individual might not be
disadvantaged

27.  Ahlenius, Henrik. (ed.) (2004): Vad är moraliskt rätt? Texter
I normative etik i urval av Henrik Ahlenius. Stockholm:
Thales. Bacchi, Carol Lee. (1996): The politics of
affirmative action: ’women’, equality and category politics.
London: Sage Publications. Badersten, Björn. (2006):
Normativ Metod: att studera det önskvärda. Lund:
Studentlitteratur. http://www.centrumforrattvisa.se – Visited
2009-11-03 Curry, George E (ed). (1996): The affirmative
action debate. Reading, Mass.: Addisson-Wesley. Dahlerup,
Drude (ed). (2006): Women, quotas and politics. London;
New York: Routledge. Dworkin, Ronald. (1977): Taking
rights seriously. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
Dworkin, Ronald. (2000): En fråga om jämlikhet:
rättsfilosofiska uppsatser. Göteborg: Daidalos.

28. Thanks you for
listening