The Necessity of Affirmative Action in the United States Today

In my opponent"s first point, one can understand where the phrase "The 14th Amendment guarantees to "any person," not just minorities, "the equal protection of the laws"" could be interpreted as requiring the government to not intervene in any way in an employer"s decision to hire their own employees regardless of race, gender, sex, or national origin, and thus affirmative action is in essence reverse discrimination. However, if my opponent had been able to grasp the full meaning of the amendment, she would understand the following. The fourteenth amendment states that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" (US Constitution). The fourteenth amendment guarantees that every person will be given equal protection from discrimination under the laws. This is intended to ensure that minorities can have the same rights as whites, which currently they unfortunately do not have. In a legal sense, minorities may have the same rights as whites, however, as is later discussed, minorities are still being discriminated against in the work force. To counter such discrimination, Section V of the Fourteenth Amendment allows for congress to "have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article" (US Constitution). Simply put, this provision allows for further legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In this Act, it is made clear how the government will make the "Equal protection of the Law" available to all persons. Under Title VII, section 701, subsection "b" the act states that "it shall be the policy of the United States to insure equal employment opportunities for " employees without discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin and the President shall utilize his existing authority to effectuate this policy" ("Transcript of Civil Rights Act (1964)"). Affirmative action is in fact a legal way enforced by both the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ensure that people of all ethnicities, sexes, and national origins will have equal opportunities in the work force. In my opponent"s second point, she fails to consider the shocking reality that discrimination in the work force based on race is still occurring today. In a study conducted in 2009, African-Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans with the exact same qualifications attempted to get jobs. According to the study, white subjects were 4.4 times more likely to get a call back than blacks, and they were 1.3 times more likely than Latinos to get the job (Pager). This study, conducted by members of Harvard and Princeton with the support of the National Institute of Justice, speaks volumes to the predicament that minorities are currently in, and they show that employers, for some reason, hold some sort of discrimination against minorities, thus creating a need for affirmative action to overcome this subliminal discrimination. Again, these workers are people of minorities with the same qualifications as white workers who are not getting the same job opportunities. The results of this study clearly prove that discrimination still exists in the workplace, and further argues why affirmative action must be kept: so that all citizens can enjoy equal opportunities. Works Cited Pager, Devah, Bruce Western, and Bart Bonikowski. "Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment." National Institute of Health Public Access. US National Library of Medicine, 1 Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...;. "Transcript of Civil Rights Act (1964)" OurDocuments.gov. National Archives. Web. 18 Oct. 2013.