Discrimination in the Workforce - Essay Example

Discrimination in the Workforce of the appears here] of the appears here] This critical essay presents a review of an article by William T. Yates and answers certain questions related to it. The bibliography appends one source in APA format. Outline I. Introduction II. Critical Review III. Conclusion Introduction The article under consideration has been written by William T. Yates and is named Equity Management: Affirmative Action for the 21st Century. In the article, the main purpose of the author is to put forward the idea of equality in the workplace. He basically wants to denounce work place discrimination by putting forward information about affirmative action, the successes that its implementation has brought about, the ways in which people that resist affirmative action are being harmful to our society, the role played by higher education in managing diversity and he has also put forward certain suggestions. Therefore, the intent of the author basically is to denounce workplace discrimination and explain to the reader just how equality in the workplace can turn out to be successful for not just the organization itself but for the entire society and the country in general. The basic question that is being addressed by the author basically revolves around work place equality, affirmative action, its advantages, the disadvantages of resisting affirmative action. He addresses the issues of its implementation as well as its history. He answers questions related to the need of equity management in work places and how it can and should be implemented. The author presents much information in his article. First of all he explains that the basic concept of affirmative action was planned in 1941 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he encouraged minority employment by ceasing hiring based on discrimination. However the term affirmative action gained momentum and fame in the year 1965 during President Lyndon Johnsons administration, when he put forward new rules related to minority hiring. President Johnsons hard work built on work that was encouraged by President John F. Kennedy with the formation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The author writes that, “Executive Order 11246 (as amended), which President Johnson signed in 1965, obligated government contractors and subcontractors ". . . to refrain from employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and to take affirmative action to assure that employees and applicants for employment are treated without regard to these factors . ." (Yates, Equity Management). The author goes on to tell us that even though everyone knows about the advantages of affirmative action, there are many who are very resistant towards it. He outlines the basic causes of this resistance as discrimination against sexes, cultures, genders as well as a concept known as “zero-sum” which believes that if one group gains positions the other group would loose them as positions, awards, promotions etc are very limited. He believes that because of this prejudice, a vast amount of talent in being wasted in the country. He believes that equity management and leadership are put up around an obligation to variety as strength instead of a weakness. Equity managers vigorously try to find individuals who are talented and worthy of chance; train them for service; make certain that blockades to their development are c leveled; and utilize these gifted individuals in significant ways. He believes that, “the back to basics approach of equity management permits us to concentrate on what is most important: treating people and using their talents as well as possible” (Yates, Equity Management). He further says that high schools can play a vital role in maintaining diversity especially if they take up the ways of the Historically Black Institutions and the Hispanic Serving Institutions as even though they support minority groups but they have higher percentages of graduates. The most important conclusion that has been written by the author is that the implementation of affirmative action is extremely necessary and for this a feeling of equality should be promoted in high schools so that prejudice does not exist in the hearts and minds of students when they start working. The key concepts that one needs to understand before reading this article are affirmative action, discrimination in the work place etc. By affirmative action the author means non-discriminatory hiring. By this term he means equal opportunity hiring. Other terms also include zero-sum, backlash. The author has left out information about whether there are drawbacks of affirmative action or not. If the people take up the author’s line of reason, there would be far more hiring of minorities which would lead to an excel in the workings of the organizations and that would lead to the betterment of the entire country as well. The author on the other hand does not state that this would also fade away the feelings of prejudice. If we fail to take up this line of action, things would continue going on the way they are with prejudice against sexes and groups and unemployment The author is basically looking at discrimination in all parts of workings. The author is looking at it very negatively. The only point that he tries to prove is that equality is necessary. He does not consider anything else related to it. The meaning of the author in the article is stated clearly. It is not muddled or confused at all and anyone going through the article can understand it. He takes the essay step-by-step and provides in-depth information about all the concepts. The author is accurate in his claims as well. This is due to the fact that he provides information as well as proof for his claims. However the author does not provide precise details about certain aspects of the article. Like when he claims that higher education institutions should take up the ways of the historically black institutions, he does not provide specifics as to how this would help. In the article, the author has provided certain information that is irrelevant. The information that he has put forward related to the proactive successes is not needed as such. It could have been brief instead of an entire paragraph with jumbled statistics that are not of much interest. But the fact remains that the author has provided in-depth information about the complexities in the subject. The author has not taken other relevant points of views into consideration and has focused mainly on affirmative action. The text however is consistent in nature and does not contain unexplained contradictions. The text remains significant and has dealt fairly with the subject under consideration. The author has taken up a rather one-sided approach to the issue at hand. He has basically written this article so as to denounce the other side of the argument which proves that the article is rather one-sided in nature and approach. Conclusion In the light of the above discussion we can hereby culminate that in his article the author promotes equality under every circumstance for the betterment of the state of affairs of the organization as well as the country. Bibliography Yates, W. Equity Management: Affirmative Action for the 21st Century. Retrieved on August 23, 2007 from: http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/Change7.html Read More