Resolution: Affirmative action has had a positive effect on society

Greeting to my opponent and to the audience and many thanks for starting this grand debate. With pleasantries out of the way, let us proceed: PRO begins the the debate by providing three vague reasons as to why affirmative action has not had a positive effect on society. However, even if I were to agree to these reasons, this wouldn't lead us to the conclusion that affirmative action has in fact not had A positive effect on society. ======================================================== AFFIRMATIVE ACTION HAS HAD A POSTIVE EFFECT (My CASE: Part 1) ======================================================== As statistics can indicate( http://www.aclu.org...) , affirmative action has helped in expanding upon diversity and enforcing the opportunity for minorities to be educated without having to worry racial biases forever preventing them from "moving ahead" in society and perhaps even grasping the chance to experience the American dream first hand. This would in fact be a (and perhaps the most recognizable) positive effect of affirmative action in our society, hence upholding my side of the resolution (unless my opponent seeks to contest that the above is not in fact positive). Of course, to pacify my opponent . . . I shall go ahead and respond to his 3 reasons for supporting his side of the resolution. ======================================================== PRO's CASE ======================================================== RE: "1.) Oppresses white males" What about white females? But in seriousness, my response to this would be "not really." After all, this is problem which has more to do with how affirmative action is being implemented rather than affirmative action itself. But just for the heck of it, allow me to cite a positive effect from this method: There has merely been a quota put in place to compensate the minorities. If anything, this actually helps Caucasian males (and females at that ;D ) as they are now given the incentive to work even harder so that they will be guaranteed a position in whatever institution they are seeking to be a part of. This means individuals who are even MORE qualified. RE:"2.) Puts less qualified individuals in positions both in the work place and in schools which degrade prestigious roles and schools" 2) Again, this is a problem merely attributed to individuals poorly handling affirmative action. Here's a means of getting around it: Give the individuals in the majority more benefits than those in the minority and allow the individuals in the minority to earn these same benefits based on performance. This provides the incentive for these individuals to qualify themselves. RE: "3.) Allows for a lack of drive in minorities and females" 3) See above. ======================================================== Problems are not being divined from affirmative; problems are being divined based on how affirmative action is implemented. (MY CASE: Part 2) ======================================================== First, let us define affirmative action: http://www.askoxford.com... DEFINITION: Affirmative action: Favoring those who tend to suffer from discrimination If affirmative action is merely the act of acting in the best interest of those who suffer from discrimination, then I can just as easily provide a form of acting in the best interest of those who are discriminated without relying on the current methods which are used to implement affirmative action. Since this is indeed the case, allow me to present a bullet proof form of affirmative action that doesn't even arguable succumb to the objections of the form of affirmative action which my opponent has. If the government wishes to get involved via affirmative action, it could just as easily simply insure that minorities are not denied on non-academic or work related bases. Let us take college admissions as an example: Students could send their college admissions in, only for their admissions to be transferred to the government. The government would check all facts concerning the students academics and would send these to colleges . . . to which colleges would determine who gets in and who stays out solely based on academics (sports are related top. I'm just insisting that no irrelevant matter be provided). Once the colleges approved of all the satisfactory academic admissions, the government would inform them of the identities of the students they received (in other words, they wouldn't know anything extra about the students until they had already accepted them). Of course, there may be some possible factors which colleges would NEED to know about before measuring all of the potential students' academic records (such as whether or not the students have a criminal record), but nothing concerning race, gender or anything of the sort. Basically though, this isn't a method which would promote inequality or racism. All students would actually be earning their acceptances into college based on their abilities alone. Given that the above method is indeed acting in the best interest of those who are discriminated (in that it is preventing further discrimination against them), this would be considered affirmative action by definition. There is no doubt a similar program could be crafted for careers, granted the program receives a sufficient amount of years and funding for development. In any case, I've proven that the methods which organizations and individuals are using for affirmative action is bad, rather than affirmative action itself. Ergo, arguing that affirmative action has not had a positive effect on society while using contentions based on methodology is using the red herring fallacy, hence is to be an argument which is by no means taken into consideration. And that'll do it for now.