The Senate floor manager of the bill, Senator Hubert Humphrey, declared that the bill “would prohibit preferential treatment for any particular group” adding “I will eat my hat if this leads to racial quotas.” [21] However affirmative action in practice would eventually become synonymous with preferences, goals and quotas as upheld or struck down by Supreme Court decisions even though no law had been passed explicitly permitting discrimination in favor of disadvantaged groups.
[citation needed] Affirmative action is intended to alleviate under-representation and to promote the opportunities of defined minority groups within a society to give them equal access to that of the majority population.
In 2012, the European Union Commission approved a plan for women to constitute 40% of non-executive board directorships in large listed companies in Europe by 2020.
In such countries, the focus tends to be on ensuring equal opportunity and, for example, targeted advertising campaigns to encourage ethnic minority candidates to join the police force.
Benefits were afforded based on this hierarchy, and favoured white-owned, especially Afrikaner-owned companies, which marginalised and excluded black people and limited their employment opportunities.
[38] The African National Congress-led government chose to implement affirmative action legislation to correct previous imbalances (a policy known as employment equity), and fulfil the obligations of the Republic as a member of the International Labour Organisation.
[53] In his inaugural speech on 7 January 2025, the newly elected President John Mahama said the NDC was committed to "breaking the glass ceiling" for women in politics.
[57] In civil service employment, Israeli citizens who are women, Arabs, Blacks or people with disabilities are supported by affirmative action policies.
[60][61] According to the Constitution of India, up to 50% of all government-run higher education admissions and government job vacancies may be reserved for members of the SC/ST/OBC-NCL categories, and 10% for those in Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), with the remaining unreserved.
Although the NEP has succeeded in creating a significant urban Malay and Native Bornean middle class, it has been less effective in eradicating poverty among rural communities.
After a strong protest by a young French lieutenant in the Ministry of Defence newspaper (Armées d'aujourd'hui), the driving license and rank plan was cancelled.
In recent years, there has been a long public debate about whether to issue programs that would grant women a privileged access to jobs in order to fight discrimination.
[102] Soon after the 1918 revolution, Inessa Armand, Lenin's secretary and lover, was instrumental in creating Zhenotdel, which functioned until the 1930s as part of the international egalitarian and affirmative action movements.
It also allows affirmative action as "special measures" for certain marginalized groups, such as national minorities, by specifically excluding it from the legal definition of discrimination.
By default, so is any other form of discrimination, quota or favouritism based on such "protected characteristics" in education, in employment, during commercial transactions, at private clubs or associations, and while using public services.
[116] Specific exemptions include: In a 2019, an employment tribunal, found that "while positive action can be used to boost diversity, it should only be applied to distinguish between candidates who were all equally well qualified for a role".
[131] Since the 1990s, conservative groups have increasingly suggested that college quotas have been used to illegally discriminate against people on the basis of race, and have launched numerous lawsuits to stop them.
By that time eight states, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Michigan, Florida, Washington and California, had already banned affirmative action.
[citation needed] Individuals of Māori or other Polynesian descent are often afforded improved access to university courses, or have scholarships earmarked specifically for them.
"[138] Under section 73 of the Human Rights Act 1993, affirmative action would be permissible if:[137] Some Brazilian universities (state and federal) have created systems of preferred admissions (quotas) for racial minorities (blacks and Amerindians), the poor and people with disabilities.
It states, however, that such programs "shall in no case entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved".
[143] Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve a range of goals: bridging inequalities in employment and pay; increasing access to education; enriching state, institutional, and professional leadership with the full spectrum of society; redressing apparent past wrongs, harms, or hindrances, in particular addressing the apparent social imbalance left in the wake of slavery and slave laws.
[The author] argue[s] that this persistence is driven in part by affirmative action inducing employers to improve their methods for screening potential hires.
[146] According to scholar George Sher, some critics of affirmative action say that it devalues the accomplishments of individuals chosen only based on the social groups to which they belong rather than their qualifications.
[148] Political scientist Charles Murray has said that beneficiaries are often wholly unqualified for the opportunity made available, citing his belief in the innate differences between races.
[151][152][17][150][153] In 2017, researcher Andrew J. Hill found that affirmative action bans resulted in a reduction in minority students completing four-year STEM degrees, and suggests this indicates that the mismatch hypothesis is unfounded.
[154] In 2020, researcher Zachary Bleemer found that an affirmative action ban in California (Prop 209) had resulted in average wage drops of 5% annually among underrepresented minorities aged 24–34 in STEM industries, especially effecting Hispanic people.
[157] Sander's paper on mismatching has been criticized by several law professors, including Ian Ayres and Richard Brooks from Yale, who argue that eliminating affirmative action would actually reduce the number of Black lawyers by 12.7%.
[163] More recently, a Quinnipiac poll from June 2009 finds that 55% of Americans feel that affirmative action, in general, should be discontinued, though 55% support it for people with disabilities.
[165] A 2009 Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey found 65% of American voters opposed the application of affirmative action to homosexuals, with 27% indicating they supported it.