A whopping one-third of the population is currently covered by race preferences--a figure that is predicted to inflate to about fifty-percent by the year 2050 since immigration from Third World countries is primarily responsible for transforming America demographically (O'Sullivan 22). These statistics essentially mean that a white male is now almost three times as likely to suffer officially imposed negative discrimination as he was thirty years ago (O'Sullivan). Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Affirmative action will never fulfill Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream unless the program undergoes some reform. Is discrimination the solution to resolving past discrimination? No, I don't believe so when it hurts others. Some people believe that affirmative action is justified as a way of making up for past discrimination. Although discrimination still exists in the United States, as it does in the rest of the world, most blacks entering the job market today were born after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and have suffered little prejudice when compared to their predecessors. In my opinion, affirmative action was a feeble attempt to correct a long history of racial and sexual discrimination that seems to incite rather than ease feelings of racial hostility. Secondly, affirmative action promotes the hiring of less skilled workers. Affirmative action sometimes forces employers to choose the best of the minority applicants, regardless of whether they have the required skills, education or experience. Many colleges and universities frequentlyalso have quotas for how many blacks it is necessary to admit to "round out" their class enrollments. Today's affirmative action can call for a college admissions officer faced with two similarly qualified applicants to c...
