gation in universities has changed for the best over the past thirty year the need for affirmative action programs are gone. They feel that these special programs have out lived their usefulness, and are no longer needed in the admissions process. Their continued use will only segregate universities toward the minority side over time. Anti-affirmative action groups have presented many reasons for doing away with affirmative action programs. These reasons include reverse discrimination and segregation, lower academic score, and the unnecessary need for affirmative action. Although the arguments that have been stated by these anti-affirmative action groups are valid in some cases, the benefits of affirmative action still carry more weight. Without clear, concise laws, the main purpose behind affirmative action, which is to rectify the injustices of the past via special policies, has been lost or misconstrued. While many people try to change the meaning of these special programs with such words as preferences or reverse discrimination, affirmative action is taking positive steps to help minorities expand access to education. Affirmative action is a program created to promote equal opportuntity, and to battle negative attitudes such as prejudice, which is discrimination based on irrelevant grounds. These prejudices can lead towards prejudial discrimination, which, because of those irrelevant grounds, someone is denied a fair deal (Beckwith). Because affirmative action is paradoxically race-conscious, it uses race to bring about a society which is not race conscious or colorblind (Beckwith). One of the reasons affirmatve action was created was to reverse hundreds of years of discrimination against minorities and women by giving them better educational opportunities (Affirmative Action). For many decades in American society, minorities and women have suffered considerable disadvantages in education and employment; affirmative action simpl...
