Date of Graduation

5-1994

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts in Political Science

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Political Science

Advisor/Mentor

Purvis, Hoyt

Abstract

But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, do as you desire, choose the leaders you please. you do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "You are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe you have been completely fair. (Graham, 182).

These words of President Lyndon Baines Johnson epitomize the foundation on which affirmative action programs were founded. Since the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, there has been a struggle between leveling out the inequalities of society and maintaining some semblance of a meritocracy. This conflict has made attempts to rectify occupational discrimination a feared and controversial subject, for even its proponents see antidiscriminatory policy as both paternalistic and activist, obstructionist and progressive, equal yet unfair. The creation and implementation of affirmative action policy in America represents the schism between the reality of race relations and the vision that creators of the Civil Rights Act envisioned.

Keywords

employment inequality; fair employment policy; equal employment opportunity

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