The term “affirmative action” was first used in an executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. Affirmative action exists to ensure equal opportunities in school and the workplace, and prevent discrimination based on sex, race, sexual orientation and national origin.

This ideology definitely has good intentions, but what Kennedy did not realize was instead of creating a “color-blind” society like he intended to, he actually created a “color-conscious” society that values ethnicity over personal credentials.  

Most recently, Lovie Smith was  fired from the position of head coach for the Chicago Bears. Smith, along with Mike Tomlin, head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, were the only two minority head coaches in the National Football League (NFL).

After Smith was fired, a controversial headline surfaced on ESPN.com. The headline asked if the NFL should prioritize hiring minority coaches for the sake of being more racially diverse.

Asking this question is part of the problem.

Because of today’s incredibly competitive society, people are working extremely hard to improve their résumés to stay ahead of their competition in the work field. It makes sense that the more qualified candidate will get the job, which is why we feel the pressure to “stand out” among everybody else.

Affirmative action disregards the notion that hard work will create future success.

Why does society put so much value on the color of someone’s skin? People should not be hired based on criteria such as this. In fact, it should be completely disregarded.

Companies should hire their employees based on their credentials as hard-working, helpful and experienced individuals. The person could be purple, but if he or she is the most qualified person for the job, so be it. We are so scared of being discriminative that we are ironically being more discriminative in the process of trying to avoid it.

According to EthnicMajority.com, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that the companies should take action to rid inequality from their workplace. Because of this, racial quotas have been used by companies all around the United States.

Racial quotas are blatant discrimination.

Along with being obviously discriminative, wouldn’t companies suffer in production because they are hiring their employees in order to stay “racially diverse”?

Why would companies want to sacrifice productivity for such a diminutive characteristic? Race only has value because society has instilled this ideology upon us.

Now that the public is so aware of affirmative action taking place all around the country, minorities are publicly condemning the movement more often. Why?

The minorities feel insulted. They feel as if their success is not attributed to their perseverance or hard work, but to the fact that because they are the minority, they are having such success.

Realistically speaking, we will probably never have a so-called “color-blind” society because humans naturally compare themselves to others. Sadly, this is why discrimination does, and probably always will, exist. Affirmative action was undeniably positive in its initial creation, but today, it has become more of a problem than a solution.