What does Affirmative Action Affirm?
Over thirty years ago, the first Civil Rights Act was passed to try to ensure the equal treatment of US citizens in terms of race, gender, and religion in the areas of education and employment. Today, we are still grappling with these issues. The original 1964 Civil Rights Act was not meant to promote quotas, but rather was meant to put employer decisions through a government filter.(Roberts, p. 38) The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was the tool that the government used to filter out discrimational acts. Unfortunately, the first compliance chief of the EEOC, Alfred W. Blumrosen, became the de facto head of the commission in its early years and he was able to wield great power. He set out to loosely interpret Title VII of the Civil Rights Act which prohibited discrimination in employment to advance the interests of minorities for whom the statue was enacted. Essentially, he promoted quotas to maximize the effect of the Civil Rights Act in order to avoid further legislat
