Affirmative Action - Mission Accomplished

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While listening to NPR this morning, I heard the story of Gerrard College, which has become a success story in the history of affirmative action in the United States.

Founded 175 years ago, Gerrard College was established in Philadelphia by the namesake of the college, who was once the richest person in the United States. At some point, he set up a trust account for the founding of a school that would take in young white orphaned boys, and this is how Gerrard College got its start. For most of its history, Gerrard College was able to stick to its exclusive recruitment practices due to the nature of the Gerrard trust account.

However, during the 1960s, with equal rights a hot topic in the nation's conscience, a Supreme Court case was decided against Gerrard College, and the school was forced to open its doors to blacks for the first time. Four black students were the first to enroll in Gerrard College, and they endured some racism from other students and teachers, but they endured that and went on to graduate.

While listening to this story, my beliefs on affirmative action were reinforced. Affirmative action has done its job, and should now be thrown away, because with few exceptions, our society is as fair to African-Americans as it's going to get. My belief was bolstered not by the part of the story of Gerrard College that you have read to this point, but by what happened in the 80s and onward.

By the 1980s, Gerrard was teeming with African-Americans. In fact, during the mid 70s, an African-American ran against a popular white student in the race for student body president, and was elected by a plurality of all of the students, black or white. By 1980, Gerrard had accepted its first female student.

The NPR story goes on to say that nowdays, Gerrard College has the opposite problem than it did up until 1968. African-Americans now dominate the college's populace, shifting the white student population to virtual non-existence. The president of the college has openly stated that diversity remains a challenge for the college. This seems to indicate that the president of the college believes that the school has become too dominated by its black student body, and he said in his remarks that blacks are fully-capable of exclusionary or racist tendencies on their own.

When people begin to talk seriously about the fact that there is bigotry and racism against white people in the United States, I believe we can say that affirmative action in this country has accomplished its objectives, and is no longer needed.

Affirmative action was set up to allow people of all nationalities equal access to opportunities in this country, and it has been codified into law. Things such as the equal opportunities policies that organizations adopt, or the equal employment policies that companies must adhere to are examples of affirmative action success.

This is not to say that reverse discrimination must be evident before something like affirmative action is a definate success, but the fact that the student body of Gerrard College is over 90% black tells me that affirmative action has accomplished what it was supposed to do. Anything more pushes the pendulum in the opposite direction and damages the rest of society.

John B.
Blog Guy