Affirmative action policy introduced in the early 1960s pursued an entirely positive aim of combating racial discrimination. The policy was introduced to promote equal employment and education opportunities for minority groups excluding people with special needs and individuals over 40 who were protected from discrimination by different laws. Despite good intention, the policy was a subject to numerous court cases concerning “reverse discrimination”. Applicants with high grades failed to enter universities because they did not belong to minorities, and white employees did not receive a promotion.
Despite the ambivalent nature, affirmative action policy provided a certain advantage to a number of individuals from minority groups who could not enter colleges or find a good job in any other way. However, the negative consequences of the policy prevail not only because it created a diverse discrimination. It was some sort of an excuse for the racial majority to hate African Americans and Hispanic citizens for taking places which should be occupied by students with higher grades, for example. That is why later public institutions in several states were prohibited from practicing affirmative action by certain amendments.
Affirmative action policy is a clear example of how discrimination cannot be treated by directing it in the opposite direction. Some victims of the policy sued the establishments which rejected their applications on the basis of their race, but many of them considered going against the law useless and remained with nothing.