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Article: Affirmative action at mid-life: a proponent's agenda for the 1990s
- Article from:
- Change
- Article date:
- March 1, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Since its origins in the 1960s as a remedial response to minority under-representation in the workplace and government contracting, affirmative action has evolved to include strategies to increase diversity on campuses. Along the way it has become a symbol of our public policy debate about equity, race, ethnicity, and gender. As affirmative action enters mid-life, it is appropriate to assess the debate and project its contours for the near future.
This essay focuses on two criticisms of affirmative action: the charge that affirmative action undermines standards and the claim that it is unfair to white males. These challenges to affirmative action's legitimacy ...