The term „affirmative action‟ primarily emerged in the United States (U. S.). Originally the policy appeared in a programme announced in the form of an executive order by President John F. Kennedy. The main purpose of this programme was to ensure that applicants would get acceptance at universities and get jobs regardless of their race, colour or origin. This policy demanded neither preferences nor quotas. The main concern was to ensure that those people who had been discriminated against in the past would no longer be discriminated against in the future. Actions to this end were to be taken by all organisations (Sowell, 2004).
In the late 1960s, a policy of affirmative action was adopted. Gamson and Modigliani (1987, cited in Pincus, 2003, p. 78), suggested that there were three packages describe affirmative action in the 1980s. The first was „remedial action‟. Here there was agreement on remedies needed to overcome the continuous impact of racial discrimination, but the impact on white people in general was ignored. The second was „delicate balance‟, which argued the need to help victims who had formerly been discriminated against, and preferential treatment on account of race was to be an
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important factor in decision-making. The third package was „no preferential treatment‟, on the grounds that all policies that made race a criterion were wrong.
Affirmative action policies in the U. S. have been highly controversial. However, groups of preferences or quotas also exist in other countries that are historically and traditionally different from the U. S. (Sowell, 2004). For example, in the U. S. some groups of preferences were designed for ethnic minority groups, others to reflect the majority of the population, others for women and others for people with disabilities. The American affirmative action approach is particularly designed for black Americans and Hispanics, and is especially intended to address the problem of access to educational institutions and employment. On the other hand, „positive action programmes‟ designed to make minorities more competitive without imposing quotas are also found in the UK, where affirmative action is illegal, and India. However, although affirmative action and positive action programmes are widespread, preferences and quotas cannot become a permanent feature of society. On the contrary, some political initiatives of this kind explicitly represent these policies as temporary (Sowell, 2004). The main difference between positive action and affirmative action is that positive action focuses on anti-discrimination laws and uses certain measures (provision of training and assistance in finding jobs) to put disadvantaged groups, whether minorities (e.g. ethnic) or majorities (e.g. women), in a position to be able to overcome the obstacles and discrimination they face in general, and in the labour market in particular. By contrast, affirmative action is centred on quota systems in which a number or proportion of places at universities and in labour market organisations are reserved for black and/or other ethnic minority people, irrespective of whether they are qualified or not.
According to the affirmative action approach in America, employers are required to provide the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programme (OFCCP) with an annual report on employees from different ethnic groups, comparing the rates of non- white and white employees in the organisation. If organisations are to be required to have affirmative action programmes for employment purposes, these must lay down specific numbers or proportions, and/or timetables that organisations have to meet,
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otherwise it will be impossible to enforce such programmes (Dhami, Squires, & Modood, 2006).
According to Gupta (2006), reservation and quota systems may be used to promote affirmative action, but they are different from affirmative action programmes per se. Affirmative action is open-ended and there are no fixed numbers. All these devices are aimed at correcting past or current governmental „mistakes‟, or social and individual bias on the basis of class, gender, creed, ethnicity etc. Affirmative action contains positive or reverse discrimination in favour of groups regarded as oppressed, whether working class, women, ethnic minorities, immigrants or people from lower socio- economic backgrounds or disadvantaged areas. According to Gupta (2006), however, affirmative action is no longer restricted to minorities. In a paradigm shift, „minority‟ has extended to „diversity‟ and goes well beyond the concerns and actions of particular interest groups based on class, creed, ethnicity, gender, and religion. The human rights movement has given a new meaning to the concept of affirmative action based on equity, justice, accessibility, neutrality with respect to gender and disability, fairness, and other liberal domestic ideals. If governments and organisations want to find alternatives for affirmative action, the issue will be complex and requires careful handling, because it is a „zero-sum game‟ in which improvement in the well-being of one group comes only at the cost of another. There are always losers and winners (Gupta, 2006).
Pincus (2003) has highlighted so called „reverse discrimination‟, where the implementation of affirmative action has a continuous negative impact on a particular group or category of people. He defines reverse discrimination as ―discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group‖ (Pincus, 2003, p. 35). The most controversial issue in the U. S. has been the impact on white people, particularly males. Public polling in the U. S. indicated that between half and three quarters of Americans believe that they were discriminated against because of affirmative action. In 1999, a study found that white Americans believe that unqualified ethnic minority people get employed over qualified white people all the time or some of the time (Seattle Times, 1999, cited in Pincus, 2003, p. 35). Gamson and Modigliani (1987, cited in Pincus,
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2003, p. 77) documented that both those in favour and those against affirmative action plans use loaded terms to define the issues: “Every policy issue is contested in a symbolic arena. Advocates of one or another persuasion attempt to give their own meaning to the issue and to events that may affect its outcomes. Their weapons are metaphors, catch phrases and other considering symbols that frame the issue in a particular fashion”.
In defence of affirmative action it is claimed that there are no other methods to increase the number of African Americans and other groups, such as Hispanic and Latino, in education and employment. However, many minorities (Asians, Arabs, Chinese, Japanese, Jews, Italians, Irish, and Eastern Europeans etc.) have in the past or recently succeeded without affirmative action.
Swain (2002), by contrast, suggests that there is a number of arguments that support affirmative action: 1) affirmative action programmes can help address the historical difficulties faced by black people in competition with Americans; 2) they help ensure diversity in employment fields; 3) there are some fears that the university „colour- blind‟ policies about admissions lead to fewer black students in the universities, therefore, affirmative action programmes can overcome these difficulties; 4) affirmative action programmes can confront assessment tasks that have an anti-black bias; 5) the emergence of educated middle class black groups has been achieved through these programmes, and this in turn helps to provide role models for other young black groups. Nevertheless, as has been mentioned earlier, affirmative action arguments are rejected by a large majority of white people in the U. S. It has led to resentment by many white males who found themselves excluded from the universities and colleges and jobs, even if qualified. Moreover affirmative action policies also discourage black people from reaching their potential. One of the main criticisms of affirmative action is that it also helps black people who may not need that help, particularly those from comfortable middle class backgrounds, as against working class white people who may need it. Some researchers (Carter, 1992, p. 20) have described affirmative action as producing “the best black syndrome”, as the ethnic minority background of individuals from certain groups become more important than their
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personal achievement, and they are judged not to be „the best‟ but only „the best black‟. Thomas and Chang (2005), however, suggest that the removal of affirmative action will reduce the acceptance rates of African Blacks and Hispanics in educational institutions, particularly universities, by between one half or two thirds. Thomas (2004) observes that those who oppose affirmative action are divided into three groups: those who believe that discontinuation of affirmative action programmes will be a mistake because they believe that the existence of racial differences creates tension; others that see discontinuation as long overdue; and a third group that believes that affirmative action is not a current necessity. Some opponents of affirmative action believe that these programmes are at best temporary means to reduce unequal opportunities in education and employment.