Affirmative Action Debate

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - Region: USA grade: Good Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH course: Social Movements and Political Participation language: English abstract: The United States is characterized by a high level of multiculturalism. However diversity comes along with discrimination which has severely damaged the country's social justice and human liberties. To counter discrimination the government decided to introduce affirmative action in 1961. Since then affirmative action has been one of the most controversial issues in the country. In this paper the affirmative action debate will be analyzed with the use of cultural theory. By defining underlying distinctively different perspectives behind the debate cultural theory seeks to shed more light into the issue. A clumsy solution to the debate will then be formulated. Since a clumsy solution combines rationality of all distinctively different perspectives in the conflict it is most likely to be accepted by the populace.