Affirmative action, or the concept of «positive» discrimination, was implemented in the United States following African Americans’ fight for integration and civil rights in the 1950s and 60s and has as its goal combating discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
Using this method, American authorities have integrated thousands of African Americans, Hispanics and other ethnic minorities into schools, universities, and the labor market. This formula has also served to end discrimination against women and push the implementation of racial and gender equality policies in the United States, Europe and other countries.
On June 28th 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States made a very important symbolic decision when they condemned two schools, one in Louisville, Kentucky and the other in Seattle, Washington, for racial discrimination against white children. In one of the cases, a child was denied his entry in nursery school because his presence imbalanced the class’ racial equality, as the school district had decided that a minimum of 15% of the children had to be visible minorities in each class.
In practice, what the Supreme Court said, is that affirmative action, despite its goal of favoring racial integration in schools, is unconstitutional. This decision didn’t end affirmative action, but points to the imminent end of a policy that no longer serves its original purpose, especially not in its application to women. In fact, today the policy only serves to increase inequality between men and women.
The truth is that there’s nothing that indicates the necessity of maintaining a policy of affirmative action, because it’s nothing more than pure discrimination, in this case against men in order to unfairly favor women. In an era in which equal rights and opportunities are a reality in developed countries, it’s scandalous that feminist groups are still favored by affirmative action.
All people, men, and women alike, must achieve their goals and place in our society with effort, intelligence, and work. We cannot continue to promote useless individuals in business or government jobs just because they’re women in order to comply with absurd quotas.

Affirmative action is no longer effective, but many women want it to continue because it’s an easy advantage and an easy way to prosper and compete in the free market. This is a huge mistake because the long term effects of this policy are negative for us all. Affirmative action was born in the context of the war against poverty, a series of social initiatives approved by Lyndon Johnson to pay a debt to historically oppressed, impoverished and enslaved communities in the United States. The communities to benefit from affirmative action weren’t chosen for their race, but rather were selected because of historical injustices committed against them. But very little or nothing is left of the original logic of historical justice that these initiatives were based upon and today affirmative action is used wrongly to throw all kinds of minorities in the same boat and maintain situations of inequality that, in the case of women, some time ago lost all claim to logic or fairness as well as perpetuate discrimination against men.
Most advanced societies in the modern world have gotten past these racial and gender factors and the artificial and unjust advantages affirmative action programs purport are thus detrimental to other collectives with equal rights. While the application of affirmative action is comprehensible for those groups that really require it, only a few groups, for example, the mentally and physically handicapped continue to demonstrate a need to be protected in this way.
The time has come to say, loud and clear, not fearing badly intentioned attacks from individuals with ulterior motives in favor of affirmative action, that the best way to encourage equality, racial, or gender, and end discrimination is to end this so-called «positive» discrimination based on race and gender, and this includes affirmative action, a system that today causes more discrimination than equality. The quota systems are in essence a flaming violation of the Constitution and force «protective» policies that end up causing a permanently vice-ridden system of incentives and quotas susceptible to corruption. Experience has demonstrated that they only provoke new problems. In the end, these programs are contrary to the principle of equal opportunity that we all must defend for all individuals, not just for our own social and cultural groups.
Socialism defends affirmative action so valiantly because it’s the formula that allows them to go ahead with the policies of equality and social engineering that they are so susceptible to despite the fact that these policies are profoundly unjust, and go against personal freedoms as well as the capacities and merits of each individual. We do not need artificially imposed quotas, but instead require equal opportunities for all people, that respect diversity and the qualities and competence of each individual. This is the way to avoid hostility and resentment between social and ethnic groups as well as the negative effects of this so called «positive» discrimination that’s not positive at all, but definitely discriminatory.