nority groups had it not been for government intervention. Affirmative action has created numerous opportunities for women and minorities in this country. It would be difficult to argue that these programs were not absolutely essential in making progress toward the semi-equality that we have today. However, affirmative action has always been a compromise, and with the progress made, a price has also been paid. Affirmative action must now be rethought and restructured. Laws created preference programs that "were based in the conscience of the American people and in their commitment to equal treatment,"(Roberts & Statton 67). "The racial quotas that we experience today are blatant perversions that are illegal under the statutory language of the Civil Rights Act" (Roberts & Stratton 67). If the goal is true equal opportunity employment, removal of all advantages and allowing people to be hired for their skills and abilities only should occur. Continuing to allow for unfair hiring practices, affirmative action programs promote discrimination. Using reverse discrimination, defined as the discerning treatment against white males instead of black males or women of any race, to solve the problem of discrimination will always receive criticism for its hypocrisy. For example, in 1965, the Newport News Shipbuilding Co. buckled under the heavy hand of the EEOC, who had solicited complaints by knocking on the doors in black neighborhoods. The company reluctantly agreed to promote 2,890 of its five thousand black workers, designating 100 blacks as supervisors, and agreed to a quota system. One shipyard worker stated that the EEOC had done its best to "set black against white, labor against management, and disconcert everybody." (Roberts & Stratton 93). Another example of this reverse discrimination was in the education system; the public case of Cheryl J. Hopwood, Douglas W. Carvell, Kenneth R. Elliott, and David A. Rogers. They filed discrimination ...
