Reverse Descrimination in Hiring, Article Analysis
Reverse Descrimination in Hiring, Article Review
Tom L. Beauchamp, author of “The Justification of reverse Discrimination in Hiring,” and James Rachels, author of “What People Deserve,” both support reverse discrimination and promote the enforcement of policies derived from reverse discrimination as a solution to the unequal employment of minorities and women.
Beauchamp’s main moral reason for supporting preferential treatment is that in order that society will reach general equality among all races in the future, we must establish reverse discrimination now. He bases all his arguments are statistical findings from graduate percentages of women from Harvard to the comparison of percentages of women’s medical school graduates to Germany. He argues that the reason for all these statistics was that all the positions were being filled through word of mouth and the interviews were conducted by white males (1. Beauchamp, cc, 095). Therefore minorities and women never had the chance to apply for the job. And because of these cases reverse discrimination is a justifiable answer to racial balance in the future.
Rachel’s argument for supporting reverse discrimination rests on the concept of desert, giving reason to the title of his article, “What People Deserve.” He supports the role model plan, reverse discrimination is needed to place blacks in prestigious careers so that future generations of blacks will have someone to look up to and see that it is possible to become a lawyer, doctor, or other high profile careers. It would show that the white man is not the only person qualified for such a position (2. Rachels, cc, 0033). This argument therefore justifies reverse discrimination because it will reduce prejudice in the future as long as it is used now to set blacks as role models. Young blacks would then be motivated and work harder towards that career because they see that it is obtainable so they could be better prepared for competition from young whites. He argues that there are still many blacks who are poor and hold low income jobs while the higher income jobs are held by whites and as long as this continues old white stereotypes of blacks will remain the same. If there were more black people holding prestigious jobs the old stereotypes will soon diminish because if would prove more difficult for whites to hold old stereotypes against blacks. However, Rachels does not analyze the...