Affirmative action, also referred to as positive and reverse discrimination, describes the deliberate policy of giving preferential treatment to some groups in a society on the grounds that they have hitherto been disadvantaged either by governmental policies or as a result of popular prejudice. It has been used to help ethnic minorities and women (see feminism), and it is sometimes suggested that it should be used to help other kinds of minorities, for example homosexuals or the handicapped. The idea has been most extensively translated into public policy in the USA, where the executive has encouraged the hiring and advancement of minorities by requiring, inter alia, that all organizations which have contracts with the federal government employ a given percentage of people belonging to a minority group.
A policy of affirmative action has proved extremely controversial in relation to university and graduate school admissions, and one of the most celebrated constitutional cases of recent years (Bakke v. Regents of the University of California, 1978) set limits to the extent to which the policy could be used. Some US Supreme Court decisions of the late 1980s and early 1990s were clearly intended to limit the possibilities for affirmative action. At the same time, European law, especially under the influence of the European Court of Justice, was beginning to constrain discrimination, and may lead to a more positive approach along the lines of affirmative action.
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