Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity - Assignment Example

Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Why the Society Still Need Affirmative Action to Solve Workplace Discrimination Problems Introduction
It is very clear the role of affirmative action which is to provide equal employment opportunity. This is enabled through the requirement of all the federal contractors to take affirmative action so as to prevent discriminatory acts at workplace and report their progress. Therefore affirmative action specifically require the contractors to ensure equal employment opportunities for the less privileged in the society such as the underutilized minorities, people with disabilities, veterans from Vietnam era as well as women. To ensure equal employment opportunity, then non-discriminative practices of offering job that knows no race, culture, age, color, physical or mental ability, sex, religion, medical condition and ancestry are most encouraged. The federal government therefore uses the aspect of affirmative action to ensure equal employment opportunity. However, a part from equal employment opportunity that the aspect of affirmative action is used to enforce, we still need affirmative action as a society for other various purposes that are discussed in this paper.
To begin with, there has been discrimination in the society against the disabled persons, which is not equal employment opportunity discrimination. This is against The Americans with Disability Act of 1990 which protects all the Americans with disabilities. For example, it happens many a times in organizations when the management does not provide facility, for instance, to enable the physically disabled persons to move freely in the organizational premises. Furniture like chairs and tables fitted in the working places are not made with consideration of the physically disables persons in mind. In learning institutions, students may leave chairs anyhow on the verandahs and pavements, hence making the disabled persons being unable to move freely. The lifts are also not made friendly for such people with sounds that can notify the blind when it reaches particular floors, or in a way to accommodate some physical disability conditions. It is therefore very important to extend the affirmative action to cover such kind of considerations in the society to reduce on discrimination.
A part from the physical disability, society still requires affirmative discrimination in many areas such as learning institutions, other than just the need for equal employment opportunities. We find that, some institutions do not offer admission places to students from particular regions due to issues of race, color, culture, disability, religion and such like. This makes students who have actually qualified and have the aspiration to study in such institutions to have their dreams shuttered since they end up attending institutions that never were their choices. This is against the University Policy and Procedure of the U.S.[Ber09].
On other thoughts, equal employment opportunities are also considered as not sufficient to prevent workplace discrimination. This is so as workplace discrimination involves more than just providing equal employment opportunities. For equal employment opportunity to be able to prevent workplace discrimination, then the employers should be able to not only provide employment opportunities to the underprivileged groups, but also to provide equal access to all job available, trainings and promotional opportunities, similar benefits and services to all employees, and make all policies and practices to apply equally to all workers. This is found not to be easy as some employees in close to all organizations do not receive equal treatment as affirmative action requires.
In a nutshell, affirmative action has really helped in creating equal employment opportunities in the U.S. however; such actions are still required by the society at large. The aspects of affirmative action have been used to fight discrimination so as to achieve equal employment opportunity, but more is required to be done so as to eradicate fully, workplace discrimination.

Reference
Ber09: , (Berkeley, 2009), Read More