Affirmative action Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Affirmative action - Assignment Example Despite this argument, affirmative action has been met by many different views. This paper essay gives an insight on the works written by Pojman and Dworkin on their perception of Affirmative Action. Pojman focused on the moral issue surrounding Affirmative action after the Supreme Court ruled some forms of reverse discrimination constitution (478). He both supports and rejects Affirmative action as he claims that it does carry some moral weight. Pojman examines seven arguments regarding Affirmative Action; first four negative and the next three positive while attempting to explain why Affirmative Action fails. Pojman scorns the compensation argument terming it a distorted notion of compensation (478). He argues that the United States government was not directly involved in slavery and much of the harm done on blacks was as an outcome of private discrimination. Pojman argues that setting quotas in skilled positions and preferential treatments in higher learning institution for Blacks is not the solution since there is no clarity on whether all blacks were harmed in the same way, unjustly harmed, or harmed more than poor whites (478). United States existence in the 17thand 18th century was deeply characterized with slavery and oppression of Blacks, Native Americans and other minority groups (Pojman 479). These groups of people had their land taken from them, provided unpaid labour, were subject to brutal punishments and were denied most of their fundamental rights was stated in the constitution. Pojman claims that the government was not directly involved, but the government gave this private sector the right of ownership over these people and did nothing when their constitutional rights were violated (480). Affirmative action merely offers a way to compensate the descendants for the offences done to their ancestors by neutralizing the competitive disadvantage that Africans Americans continue to suffer