I found an interesting article below about an Asian student at the University of Maryland who is opposed to affirmative action taken by the university because other minority groups are receiving larger scholarships than him while they have lower academic scores and he is a state champion athlete.

http://www.pacificcitizen.org/content/2008/national/mar7-lin-affirmative-action-1014.htm

Also in this article, 5 states are trying to put a vote into place on the November ballots that will erase affirmative action plans with regards to "public contracting, employment, and education." This will be interesting to see if it even makes the ballot to begin with. Arizona is one of the states that is attempting to add this vote in November.

I don't think this will pass in all honesty even though I would like to see it go through. I think there is too much pressure to be PC from larger companies that are requiring smaller companies to diversify in order to get contracts from them. I was talking with my dad this weekend and he was telling me that one large potential client opted to go with his law firm for a big bankruptcy case. The company chose them because their law firm excelled in AA hiring practices as well as met a company quota for the number of Asian and women within the firm, that the other law firm didn't meet. I personally don't see how that is relevant nor do I want to know if that was the sole reason the decision was made. It was obviously significant enough for them to tell the law firm they had just hired.

Affirmative Action: Reverse Discrimination

I understand the origins of Affirmative Action, but it has gone too far. Presently Affirmative Action begins for an individual far before the job hiring process. Really it first enters one's life when they begin applying for higher level education. Applying to college has now become a crapshoot because universities are choosing to accept minority or gender specific students with equal or lesser credentials over generic male majority students with equal or higher grades and skills. I like the idea behind affirmative action and the fact that it levels the playing field as well as increases diversity in job and education settings. However, this movement has gone too far. I was taught that the person who is best fit for the job would attain that job.

No longer is this the case. Companies feel pressure to fill certain quotas requested by clients and internally from HR and are leaning on AA hiring practices to meet these requirements. I am at a loss to understand why this is a neccissity and has become the norm in hiring practices across the US. If we take a step back and look at what is happening its reverse descrimination against white males. I wonder if in 50 years Affirmative Action will mean adding extra points to a college or job application grading scale for being a middle class white male?