It’s hard to believe that we all have the same opportunity to succeed in society, especially when some may be dirt poor and many obstacles get in the way, such as money, education, institutional racism, gender, and race.
However there are some individuals who believe that we all have the same opportunities and we should do away with any and all affirmative actions. Representative Curtis Oda, chief sponsor of the 2010 resolution HJR 24: Joint Resolution on Equal Treatment by Government, believes that our government should prohibit discrimination and preferential treatment as stated in the description of the resolution. This resolution would have made it possible to amend the state constitution to end any and all programs that are part of the national affirmative action programs.
The implementation of affirmative action programs in the USA began in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, additions were made in 1965 and gender was added in 1968. The purpose of action programs is to provide equal opportunity employment regardless of race, gender, religion, and national origin.
Affirmative action has increased to not just workplaces, but also to universities who want to have a diversity of students attending their school. However, this is sometimes referred to as reversed racism. Jennifer Gratz who sued the University of Michigan after being denied admission based on their affirmative action policy and Ward Connerly, former member of the University of California Board of Regents have been fighting against affirmative action since the 1990s. They have succeeded in creating initiatives to repeal affirmative action in California, Washington, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, and Arizona. They found their way to Utah in 2010 and tried to pass HJR 24 in the last days of the legislative session without much public input. Rep. Oda brought the resolution up for discussion in a House Committee just the morning after the full text of the resolution had been released and in a party line vote the committee members passed it right away. Luckily, the resolution was circled, or put on hold, until the very last day of the legislative session that year. The legislation decided to defeat the resolution without any vote on it. This may have been because of way the resolution was brought up, or possibly because Congressmen decided that a change to the state Constitution was a delicate topic that needed more than one session to make a decision. It may also have been that heavy-handed lobbying that was pushed on the fence-sitting legislators.
Of course, this might just be a matter of how you see yourself in this society. Are you the poor brown kid with a slim chance of getting away from the stereotypes and making it or the lucky person to have the right color of skin, within the right economic status, the strong dominant gender, and whose ancestors have been making it big since the roots of what we now call America. Unfortunately for some of us, like myself, we are a minority, female, and expected to have children by now, with little or no chance of even finishing college. And I’m really suppose to make it to the top with all this institutional racism and sexism involved? I think I’d rather have a little help even in this perfect post-racial society.
Fortunately for now the anti-affirmative action movement seems to have died down in Utah, possibly because Utah legislation has other things to worry about like immigration, education, or repealing daylight savings time. It may also be because Ward Connerly was recently accused of mishandling his non-profit organization money and receiving an exorbitant salary by non other than his sidekick Jennifer Gratz. You can read the story in the New York Times Article. Such controversy may not go well with a person who has said he worked hard for his money, regardless of his race.
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