Question

Employment and promotion should be on the basis of qualifications and personnel’s long term contributions to the company.

But many Canadian academics defend Affirmative Action.

find a good definition for Affirmative Action. How can one defend Affirmative Action? If you were in charge of hiring would you use Affirmative Action? Why/Why not?

Answer 1

Affirmative action could be defined as the actions taken by the government in order to provide priority to those who are underrepresented or experienced an accumulated disadvantage in areas such as, education, employment, housing, healthcare, political participation etc. Affirmative actions would help those who experienced centuries long discrimination to progress in the society through some relaxation in terms of age, gender, qualification, experience etc. Rawls would consider this as the journey towards original position where the ground would be levelled for all the races. Once the original position is achieved and veil of ignorance is in place, equal opportunities could be implemented. Centuries long discrimination cannot be eliminated in few years, so affirmative actions should continue until there is a visible change in the society in terms of equality.

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