It seems as if the roaring debate over affirmative action has again emerged. Much of the debate centers about education. Critics appear to believe that a policy to aggressively counter discrimination against minority groups is no longer necessary and, further, serves only to create unfair privileges. My paper will investigate the question of affirmative action in schooling for minorities in order to address the issue of affirmative action in college admissions. What is the evidence that supports arguments for or arguments against affirmative action policies in college admissions?Affirmative action is defined in Websters dictionary as "a policy or program for correcting the effects of discrimination in the employment of education of members of certain groups." There are many different types of advantage policies that no one seems to question. For example, there are many students who get privileges at universities because their parents or relatives are alumni. No one pickets or rallies against this practice. Minority groups are trying to keep affirmative action in order to compensate for the lack of demographic and economic balances within the population of educational systems. A major crisis facing American higher education today is the rapidly declining number of Blacks successfully graduating from institutions of higher education at all levels-- 2-year and 4-year colleges, graduate schools, and professional schools. Many educators, political leaders, civil rights groups, and other concerned organizations have expressed alarm in recent years about the drop in the percentage of Black high school graduates who go on to 4-yeart colleges and beyond. "Although more Blacks are obtaining high school diplomas, the number of Black high school graduates, ages 18 to 25 years old, who enrolled in college fell from 33.5% in 1976 t 26.1% in 1985" (Lang, Barriers to Blacks, p.510; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1987). To some extent this dec...
