Main Factors Affecting The Rise And Fall Of Affirmative Action

As an important component of American civil rights policy, affirmative actioninvolves not only racial issue—the most sensitive issue in American society, but also aseries of problems concerning constitution, traditional values, political identity andsocial culture. Therefore, a study on affirmative action can be helpful for us to furtherunderstand the American society.Affirmative action is the product of American Civil Rights Movement. From themiddle of 1960s to the early 1980s, affirmative action gained more and moremomentum. During this period, affirmative action actually played an important role ineasing the racial conflicts and raising the social status as well as the living standard ofthe black people.However, affirmative action has been controversial since its inception. Since theearly 1980s, conservatism became dominant, exerting a negative impact onaffirmative action. The middle class among the black people emerged, and more andmore whites complained that they were subject to "reverse discrimination".Affirmative action began to decline.This paper gives a brief introduction to the origin of affirmative action. Afteranalyzing the rise and fall of affirmative action through cases study, the author comesto the conclusion that the rise and fall are mainly affected by three factors, namely,social background, prevailing ideas and attitude of administration. These three factorshave not only affected the rise and fall of affirmative action, but also will continue toaffect the trend of development of affirmative action in the future.