Boston Latin is one of America’s premier public schools. On February 14, 1998, Sarah Wessmann applied to this school and was rejected along with ten other white candidates. Sarah could handle the fact that she was not accepted but she couldn’t accept the fact that ten black, and Latin students were accepted over her when they scored lower on the entrance exam. Her mother sued the school for reverse discrimination and won. Her daughter was accepted and the school had to scrap a policy that set aside 35% of all school places for black and Latino applicants (the Economist 2/14/98). Should race be a factor in admitting students to a school? This is a question raised by many people in the nineties and is a very debated issue.
This issue is called reverse discrimination. Reverse discrimination is found everywhere in today’s society. Almost all businesses and all government jobs require a certain percentage of their workforce to be minorities regardless of their qualifications. This is unfair in many ways. One way is because when a person is not properly qualified for a job, he does not perform the job as well as a qualified person does.
Everyone from management to customers is affected due to lack of quality work they perform. This can cause loss of money and low productivity. Another good example of reverse discrimination is in the military. When my father went into the Air Force, he had to take an ASVAB test.
This tested his knowledge in certain fields of work and the Air Force used it as a means of admittance. Minorities only have to score about 75% of what my dad had to score on the test and this is not only wrong, but also unfair. Why lower the standards for minorities? I know I don’t want somebody to run my country that isn’t qualified and got the job just because he was a minority. Standards for a job should not be lowered because a certain group of people is less qualified. I’m not saying that all minorities are underqualified, but it does seem that the majority of them are. I believe that no matter what race or religion you are, when applying to a school or a place of work everyone should have the same opportunity.
Many minorities claim that they haven’t had the chance to succeed because of their race. This is untrue because there are many minorities who have succeeded and lived a very good and prosperous life. If that were the case, just about anybody could blame their lack of qualification on something when the real reason is they just haven’t tried hard enough. Another thing I don’t believe in the fact that if I owned a business that I have to have a certain number of minorities working there. I think that if I own the business and I am not affiliated with the government, I should be able to hire whoever I want. Whether I hire my dad or my little 8 year-old sister, it is my choice and if my business fails because of my employees, that is my problem and not anyone else’s.
And if people decide not to patronize my business that is also my problem therefore I should be able to legally hire and employ whoever I want. Again, why should I hire someone who isn’t qualified for the job just because government says I have to? I think the federal government should reconsider the discrimination policy they have enforced and let employers hire whoever they want too. In today’s society, white people are discriminated against just like the minorities. The story of Benjamin Kook is a prime example. He and his wife live in South Africa.
Ben owned his own plumbing business until his truck and all his supplies got stolen. Due to the fact that he is considered a minority in Africa, he could not find a job that could pay even close to what he was making before. He went from taking home a $1000 a month to $80 a month. He and his wife can barely afford to pay rent much less has the luxuries they did before (Spectator 2/28/98). This goes to show that no matter where you go, discrimination will be there no matter what race you are. On the other hand now, I want to elaborate on sports.
All sports teams in America are a business yet the law of equal employment does not affect them. There is no law stating that there must be a certain number of minorities playing professional sports. Professional athlete’s professional sports due to their ability in that sport not their race. Black athletes mostly rule some sports like basketball for example.
Very rarely can I drive through the park and find only white people playing basketball. But take car racing for example, it is ruled by white people and probably remain like that for a long time because minorities don’t seem to take an interest in racing like they due basketball or baseball for example. All this and there are never lawsuits filed against a professional sports affiliation due to discrimination. If athletes are expected to be the best in the country, why can’t business employers expect the same? If businesses could, they would hire only the best applicants, not hire who the government tells them to hire. In conclusion, reverse discrimination is almost as big of a problem as minority discrimination.
Why should minorities have lower standards than white people should? The people with the best qualifications and most talent should be the ones first in line to be hired and definitely should not be accepted somewhere because a company or a school must accept minorities with lower qualifications. Boston Latin is one of America’s premier public schools. On February 14, 1998, Sarah Wessmann applied to this school and was rejected along with ten other white candidates. Sarah could handle the fact that she was not accepted but she couldn’t accept the fact that ten black, and Latin students were accepted over her when they scored lower on the entrance exam.
Her mother sued the school for reverse discrimination and won. Her daughter was accepted and the school had to scrap a policy that set aside 35% of all school places for black and Latino applicants (the Economist 2/14/98). Should race be a factor in admitting students to a school? This is a question raised by many people in the nineties and is a very debated issue. This issue is called reverse discrimination. Reverse discrimination is found everywhere in today’s society.
Almost all businesses and all government jobs require a certain percentage of their workforce to be minorities regardless of their qualifications. This is unfair in many ways. One way is because when a person is not properly qualified for a job, he does not perform the job as well as a qualified person does. Everyone from management to customers is affected due to lack of quality work they perform. This can cause loss of money and low productivity. Another good example of reverse discrimination is in the military.
When my father went into the Air Force, he had to take an ASVAB test. This tested his knowledge in certain fields of work and the Air Force used it as a means of admittance. Minorities only have to score about 75% of what my dad had to score on the test and this is not only wrong, but also unfair. Why lower the standards for minorities? I know I don’t want somebody to run my country that isn’t qualified and got the job just because he was a minority.
Standards for a job should not be lowered because a certain group of people is less qualified. I’m not saying that all minorities are underqualified, but it does seem that the majority of them are. I believe that no matter what race or religion you are, when applying to a school or a place of work everyone should have the same opportunity. Many minorities claim that they haven’t had the chance to succeed because of their race. This is untrue because there are many minorities who have succeeded and lived a very good and prosperous life. If that were the case, just about anybody could blame their lack of qualification on something when the real reason is they just haven’t tried hard enough.
Another thing I don’t believe in the fact that if I owned a business that I have to have a certain number of minorities working there. I think that if I own the business and I am not affiliated with the government, I should be able to hire whoever I want. Whether I hire my dad or my little 8 year-old sister, it is my choice and if my business fails because of my employees, that is my problem and not anyone else’s. And if people decide not to patronize my business that is also my problem therefore I should be able to legally hire and employ whoever I want. Again, why should I hire someone who isn’t qualified for the job just because government says I have to? I think the federal government should reconsider the discrimination policy they have enforced and let employers hire whoever they want too. In today’s society, white people are discriminated against just like the minorities.
The story of Benjamin Kook is a prime example. He and his wife live in South Africa. Ben owned his own plumbing business until his truck and all his supplies got stolen. Due to the fact that he is considered a minority in Africa, he could not find a job that could pay even close to what he was making before. He went from taking home a $1000 a month to $80 a month. He and his wife can barely afford to pay rent much less has the luxuries they did before (Spectator 2/28/98).
This goes to show that no matter where you go, discrimination will be there no matter what race you are. On the other hand now, I want to elaborate on sports. All sports teams in America are a business yet the law of equal employment does not affect them. There is no law stating that there must be a certain number of minorities playing professional sports. Professional athlete’s professional sports due to their ability in that sport not their race.
Black athletes mostly rule some sports like basketball for example. Very rarely can I drive through the park and find only white people playing basketball. But take car racing for example, it is ruled by white people and probably remain like that for a long time because minorities don’t seem to take an interest in racing like they due basketball or baseball for example. All this and there are never lawsuits filed against a professional sports affiliation due to discrimination. If athletes are expected to be the best in the country, why can’t business employers expect the same? If businesses could, they would hire only the best applicants, not hire who the government tells them to hire.
In conclusion, reverse discrimination is almost as big of a problem as minority discrimination. Why should minorities have lower standards than white people should? The people with the best qualifications and most talent should be the ones first in line to be hired and definitely should not be accepted somewhere because a company or a school must accept minorities with lower qualifications.
