Affirmative action

Affirmative action is a policy of giving preference or favor to those who have suffered discrimination or prejudice in order to increase representation in universities, business, public services (like the Police) and government. In the United States, affirmative action was allowed as a remedy to racial injustice by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Affirmative action usually applies to racial minorities, women and those who are otherwise under-represented within a particular field. Justifications of affirmative action tend to either that it solves an individual, personal injustice or that it increases diversity, which is good for the institution and helps prevent future inequality by acting as a obligation to the institution to confront it's own inequality.

Opponents of affirmative action argue that it is a form of 'reverse' discrimination, that those favoured by affirmative action policies are being promoted over better-qualified candidates, and that a candidate placed in a position because of an affirmative action policy may not have as much respect as if they had been placed in that position through a meritocratic system instead.