Affirmative Action Debate: A Case of the United States

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - International 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.