affirmative action

Affirmative action, also known as positive action or positive discrimination (British English), involves sets of policies and practices within a government or organization seeking to include particular groups that were historically discriminated against in areas in which such groups are underrepresented, mistreated or suffer from lack of public support — such as education and employment. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing wrongs, harms, or hindrances. The nature of affirmative-action policies varies from region to region and exists on a spectrum from a hard quota to merely targeting encouragement for increased participation. Some countries use a quota system, reserving a certain percentage of government jobs, political positions, and school vacancies for members of a certain group; an example of this is the reservation system in India. In some other jurisdictions where quotas are not used, minority-group members are given preference or special consideration in selection processes. In the United States, affirmative action by executive order originally meant selection without regard to race but preferential treatment was widely used in college admissions, as upheld in the 2003 Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, until 2023, when this was overturned in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. In the United Kingdom, hiring someone simply because of their protected-group status, without regard to their performance, is illegal. However, the law in the United Kingdom does allow for membership in a protected and disadvantaged group to be considered in hiring and promotion when the group is under-represented in a given area and if the candidates are of equal merit (in which case membership in a disadvantaged group can become a "tie-breaker"). An alternative approach, common in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, is positive action. Under this approach, the focus tends to be on ensuring equal opportunity and, for example, targeted advertising campaigns to encourage ethnic minority candidates to join police forces. This is often described as being "color blind", but some American sociologists have argued that this is insufficient.