The history of affirmative action is a rocky journey for the government and put so many people between a rock and a hard place. Either side you look at affirmative action, it comes down to either being racist or reverse discrimination. It’s a hot topic that can go either way and no matter what, someone will never be happy with the results. Throughout history, affirmative action has been declared either unconstitutional but for other times, constitutional. Depending on the current view of the Supreme Court and other political leaders, the outcome of affirmative action changes over time creating and repairing loopholes.

On March 6th, 1961, President John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925 used Affirmative Action Employment Opportunity that “took affirmative action” to ensure opportunities for minorities in the business and educational world. This first action towards affirmative action led to the creation of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 signed by President Lyndon Johnson. This act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and religion. This created the foundations of basic affirmative action when it was newly introduced to society. As people started to get used to the influence of affirmative action, they soon discovered problems in the system that created reverse discrimination.

The first landmark Supreme Court case was the University of California vs. Bakke in 1978. This case forced limitations on affirmative action to provide a greater opportunity for minorities, but not at the expense of the rights of the majority. In this case, Allan Bakke (a white applicant) was rejected from his school of choice even though minorities with lower scores were accepted. He stated that the foundations of affirmative action (judging on race, color, and religion) were a violation of the fourteenth Amendment. In conclusion to this Supreme Court case, it was ruled that race was a legitimate factor in school admissions but on the other hand, the use of rigid quotas that a school has set aside was not. It was unfair to the more qualified students for the school to set aside seats in each entering class for disadvantaged minority students who may have been not as qualified. This case uncovered one of the main problems throughout the history of affirmative action.

Another twist to affirmative action’s history was in the court case Wygant vs. Jackson Board of Education 1968. Another view on affirmative action was discovered because this case challenged a school board’s policy of protecting minority employees by laying off non- minority teachers first. This showed how affirmative action can develop into reverse discrimination and how unfair it can become to the majority. Laying off non-minority teachers looked unfair and also looked like reverse discrimination, but the school argues about why they did that was because the “Denial of a future employment opportunity is not as intrusive as loss of an existing job”. In other words, according to this school, it would be harder for the minorities to find another job than the non-minorities. As time moved on, affirmative action turned into an unfair advantage to minorities and a burden on the non-minorities.

In 1995, people started to think that affirmative action has done its job and should be banned. Some judges in the Supreme Court at that time believed that “the unhappy persistence of both the practice and the lingering effects of racial discrimination against minority groups in this country justified the use of race-based remedial measures in some circumstances” meaning that affirmative action should be either reformed or abolished because of how affirmative action backfired on the rights of non-minorities. Also in 1995, President Clinton spoke about creating stricter standards to have a controlled reform on affirmative action. But, President Clinton actually reaffirmed the need for affirmative action which quietly encouraged the systematic discrimination in the United States including reverse discrimination.

In 1997, 1998, and 2000, the states of California, Washington, and Florida developed a state ban on all forms of affirmative action. People seemed to think that there should be an end to affirmative action because of the unfair advantages it was giving minorities. But, affirmative action wasn’t totally abolished in the country. Some people support the advantages that affirmative action gives because it helps those who are a minority and do not have a lot of options for education a chance for a higher education. Towards the present day, affirmative action seems to be great at first, but then clearly disables those influenced by it. Studies and tests show that the people admitted under affirmative action have a lesser chance at succeeding in school because of that extra boost to get in there. It is now viewed as unfair to the majorities and people are starting to discover it and exploit it.

Finally, the Supreme Court rules against considering race to integrate school in June of 2006. In the cases of Parents vs. Seattle and Meredith vs. Jefferson, the schools attempted to maintain diversity by using affirmative action, but to the point of overuse. The court declares this unconstitutional and basically declares affirmative action unconstitutional. Affirmative action’s basic purpose is to level the playing field between minorities and majorities, but in these two court cases, it proves those foundations unconstitutional. Because of the realized problems of affirmative action, in November of 2008, the state governments issued a ballot measure to ban affirmative action goes before voters in Colorado and Nebraska. The results came back with 50% passing votes in Nebraska but on the other hand, the voters in Colorado rejected the proposed ban. Affirmative action is still influencing admissions in colleges.

Since 1961, affirmative action has influenced society in which minorities are given a boost to wherever then need to go and eventually disabling them later in life. Attempts to reform affirmative action have proven unsuccessful in making anything better in this type of system and only making the boundaries more unclear to the general public. Clearly in the State and Supreme levels of courts, the attempt to reform or to ban affirmative action has not been successful yet, but only more complicated as more loopholes are created and affirmative action seems unsuccessful. Proving that affirmative action is a complicated issue that shows how either way affirmative action is viewed, its either discrimination or reverse discrimination, making the solution to the problem of affirmative action a tough answer where no one will be happy.