Affirmative Action

Con contradicts himself. Con’s section 1. Half Truth’s. Con states, “The point of the debate is, should affirmative action programs be legal? And if not, why not?” If that was truly the “Point” of the debate, then he wouldn’t have posted his “what if scenario” arguments during R2. Obviously he learned something from the information that I documented in my R2, so now in R3 he wants to pretend that this debate is about, “should affirmative action be legal.” Maybe we can have that debate on another occasion, but the resolution of this debate simply says, “Affirmative Action.” He is con and I am pro. He is attempting to make the resolution what he wishes it would have been, had he known the information that I provided. Con’s section 2. Corporate Programs In R2 he states that private enterprise ought to determine the need for affirmative action, and then in R3, he attempts to link the citing of how the fourteenth amendment was used in a court decision involving College admissions to imply that affirmative action is unconstitutional in hiring and promotional practices by private enterprise. No such decision by any court has ever been made involving affirmative action and employment. Here is a quote of him to show that he viewed voluntary AA favorably until I refuted him in R2: “Because if I have a competitor who manufactures the same product, and he doesn't care what sex his workers are, as long as they're good at their job, then he has an advantage over me. The reason is because my competitor has access to a greater supply of quality workers than I do, and I have limited myself to only a certain portion of the labor market.” Then in round 3 he then attempts to link private enterprise’s attempts at finding qualified candidates from diverse backgrounds, with a violation of the 14th amendment. When a private enterprise seeks to diversify its workforce, it does so by marketing to the types of applicants for which it hopes to recruit potential employees. Is con trying to imply that we need government intervention in how employers decide how to market to get applicants to know about job openings? “Affirmative action in employment involves active recruitment of women and minorities by looking for candidates beyond informal job networks traditionally dominated by white men.Affirmative action encourages the public advertisement of jobs to identify qualified candidates in places where employers might not otherwise look.” https://oied.ncsu.edu... Recruiting qualified applicants is much different than discriminating against applicants based solely on external factors. Con quotes: ”The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. It is also illegal to discriminate against a person because the person complained about discrimination, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in an employment discrimination investigation or lawsuit.” but what he fails to realize is that affirmative action in private employment is aimed at finding qualified candidates, not hiring unqualified candidates over qualified white males." In Richmond Times Dispatch online, Karen Michael discusses how and why the court rulings against affirmative action in College admissions, fails to apply to affirmative action in employment. “Whether you are a federal contractor or not, affirmative action does not mean preferences or quotas. Period. The obligation of federal contractors who have affirmative action obligations simply means that they must track applicants, engage in nondiscrimination, analyze the racial and gender make-up of the organization, and, importantly, cast the net to find qualified minorities and females for consideration in the application process.However, at no point, ever, is the employer permitted to use race or gender as a deciding factor in hiring an employee and must consistently hire the most qualified candidate. To hire a less-qualified person due to race or gender would violate the other federal discrimination laws. For example, it would be illegal to discriminate against a more qualified white male in favor of a less qualified Hispanic female. If an employer did this, the white male could sue alleging discrimination… and he’d win if it was true that the employer made the decision to hire the lesser qualified Hispanic female due to her race or gender. Such discriminatory motive is a textbook violation of Title VII.Federal law is clear that even federal contractors who have affirmative action obligations cannot use illegal considerations in their hiring and promotions practices. The law states as follows as it relates to determining how to attempt to diversify the workplace:” She then quotes the law itself. http://www.richmond.com... In con’s section 2. Corporate Programs he also states, “Because under the definition of affirmative action, as set forth in the debate, an employer would encourage increased hiring of women and minority groups, when the laws that the EEOC is required to uphold do not allow this.” First of all that quote is a dependant clause, a fragmented sentence, as it does not make sense on it’s own, but aside from that, the point he was trying to make is misleading. “An employer would encourage..…..,” is an idea that there is no law against! For an employer to practice the encouragement of hiring individuals, who are not of the race or gender of the most common type of applicants is not illegal. It is illegal to discriminate, it is not illegal to encourage. Con’s section 3. Economic Incentives In R2, con argues that affirmative action discriminates against white males. There are several government grants that are available to any company who bids on them (at which time they only need to have a written plan for hiring more than just white males.) It isn’t unreasonable, in a country where white males have had a social and economic advantage throughout its history, for the government to encourage conditions that lead to prosperity for others, some who have needed to depend on government assistance to survive. The government recognizes the value of being economically independent, so affirmative action is about equal oppurtunity, not the oppression of white males. Conclusion Affirmative action is a way of providing equal opportunity for all andis legal. I have relayed the facts about how and why affirmative action is applied to employment situations in the US. Con has attempted to make the programs that include the idea of affirmative action about the oppression of white males, which he has not proven.