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Prentice Hall PoliticalScience Interactive. Thomas R. Dye Politics in America Special Topic Chapter15 Affirmative Action. Slavery and Its Legacy.
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Prentice HallPoliticalScienceInteractive Thomas R. Dye Politics in America Special Topic Chapter15 Affirmative Action
Slavery and Its Legacy Race-based slavery and the years of racial discrimination that followed laid the foundation for contemporary racial disparities in wealth, education, housing patterns and employment opportunities
Slavery and Its Legacy • Freed slaves and their descendents had no accumulated or inherited assets • Because of the visibility of their skin color, African Americans were easy to exclude from institutions dominated by whites
Gender Equality in the Economy The Earnings Gap: Median Weekly Earnings of Men and Women
Gender Equality in the Economy Gender Differentiation in the Labor Market
Hispanics Latinos have suffered discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, education and have faced harsh treatment from police and other government officials Cesar Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association to organize Latinos
Asian Americans “Asian-Americans…face widespread prejudice, discrimination and barriers to equal opportunity” -U.S. Civil Rights Commission A WWII Japanese Internment Camp
The Ideal of Equality The drive for civil rights focused on • Equal access to voting • Prohibition of certain forms of “categorical discrimination” Categorical discrimination Exclusion, by reason of race, gender, or disability, from public education, employment, housing and public accommodations
Equality and Equal Rights Equality of Opportunity Equality of Starting Conditions Equality Between Groups Equality of Results
Equality and Equal Rights Equality of Condition The government takes direct action to reduce economic disparities between citizens Equality of Opportunity The government seeks to eliminate some discriminatory barriers to education, employment, and public accommodation
Affirmative Action Affirmative Action Remedial preferences provided to people in university admissions, employment, and government contracts Affirmative Action is called reverse discriminationby opponents
Public Opinion 49 percent of white respondents think that affirmative action has gone too far, while 79 percent of minority respondents think that it is still needed. What are some of the consequences that these polarized views can result in?
Affirmative Action in the Higher Education • How does affirmative action in universities differ from other preferential criteria in admissions? • University of California v. Bakke (1978) was one of the earliest challenges to affirmative action in the university
Affirmative Action in Higher Education • Diversity and Affirmative Action • Diversity as a Constitutional Question • Race-Neutral Approaches to Diversity Protest over Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s effort to ban racial preferences in university admissions and state contracting
Affirmative Action in Higher Education Barbara Grutter (left) was the unsuccessful plaintiff in Grutter v. Bollinger Jennifer Gratz (right) was the successful plaintiff in Gratz v Bollinger.
The Affirmative Action Controversy • Richmond v. Croson (1989) • California’s Proposition 209
Affirmative Racial Gerrymandering Following the 1990 census, the Department of Justice pressed southern legislatures to draw as many districts as possible in which minorities would constitute a majority of the electorate Affirmative Racial Gerrymandering in North Carolina