Affirmative Action In Florida Essays - Social Inequality

Affirmative Action In Florida 1 Recently Governor Jeb Bush has pushed for the passage of a plan he calls ONE FLORIDA, an executive order to abolish affirmative action in the state of Florida. Through the history of affirmative action in our country and its ensuing abolition, politicians and society at large are ever debating the merits of a racially based admissions, hiring, and contracting program. With anti-affirmative programs already in effect in both California and Texas, Florida is following suit with a college admissions program designed to diversify college student bodies without becoming racially discriminatory. Also incorporated into ONE FLORIDA are new standards in both hiring and contracting. To better understand these changes we must look at the history of affirmative action and later, whether or not it is constitutional. The term affirmative action predates the civil rights movement. According to John Skrentny, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, the basic idea comes from the centuries-old English legal concept of equity or the administration of justice according to what was fair in a particular situation, as opposed to rigidly following legal rules, which may have a harsh result (Skrentny 6). The phrase affirmative action was first used in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, and it referred to employers discriminating against union members. In 1961, with the enactment of President John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10925, advising employers to take affirmative action to ensure nondiscrimination, the term became synonymous with the civil rights movement (Bloch 70). President Lyndon B. Johnson's Executive Order 11246 expanded on the civil rights issue by ordering contracting firms with the federal government to take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment without regards to race, creed, color or national origin (qtd. in Skrentny 7). Eventually affirmative action was included in private hiring practices and college admissions programs throughout the country. 2 This ideal called affirmative action has now come to mean reverse discrimination when one race or gender is shown preferential treatment in admissions or hiring. In state colleges such as Florida State University and the University of Florida, some minority students are admitted solely on the basis of color, excluding qualified white applicants, to diversify the make-up of the student body. With the enactment of FLORIDA ONE diversification will be based on race-neutral socioeconomic factors...[without regards] to race or ethnicity, as well as factors such as income level, geography, special talents and whether an applicant is a first generation college student (Equity in Education). Included in Governor Bush's plan is the Talented 20 program. This program will guarantee admissions to any Florida state school to the top 20% of all seniors graduating public high school in the state regardless of SAT or ACT scores. Bush believes that as a result of the Talented 20 program, approximately 1,200 additional minority high school students will be given the opportunity to attend a state university (ONE FLORIDA Myths). However, the Talented 20 does not guarantee admissions into the university of choice. It also does not replace the current admissions process. The Talented 20 is in addition to the regular admissions process. The Governor proposes additional funding to accommodate this additional students (ONE FLORIDA Myths). ONE FLORIDA is also designed to help all facets of education in Florida by asking the Legislature to increase funding for need-based aid by $20 million. We will seek $1.6 million to ensure all 10th grade children take the Preliminary Scholastic Achievement Test, $2.4 million to expand Florida's On-Line High School to target students in D and F schools, $10 million for the Governor's Mentoring Initiative, and a $1 million increase in funding for the College Reach Out Program. 3 We will also pay incentive bonuses for teaching Advanced Placement Courses on our low performing schools.(Equity in Education) In the improved version of ONE FLORIDA, the Governor's Executive Budget has recommended an increase of $36 million for [A+ Supplemental Instruction], as well as other intervention strategies and activities to improve student achievement (Improvements to ONE FLORIDA). In addition the College Board partnership will provide free on-line access to SAT preparation activities for all Florida high school students. By these increases in funding, Governor Bush is ensuring that more minority students who