The Controversies Over Affirmative Action And Its Implications For Chinese Ethnic Policies

In American history,racial minorities,especially blacks were discriminated against and treated unfairly,leading to their inferior status in social,political and economic life.In order to eliminate ingrained discrimination against minorities in society,the government takes affirmative action to protect equal rights of minority groups.This policy develops into preferential treatment to racial minorities that is to give preference to minorities in college admissions and job hiring,as a compensation for the past discrimination in history.Affirmative action has many similarities with Chinese ethnic policies.Because of unbalanced allocation of resources to areas inhabited by ethnic minorities,ethnic minority students are given preferential treatment in college enrollment and hiring.Group preference has always been controversial.It contradicts with people's understanding of social equality.So both affirmative action and Chinese ethnic policies have aroused lots of debates in society.This thesis mainly discusses the controversies faced by affirmative action and Chinese ethnic policies and on this basis gives some suggestions on Chinese ethnic policies.First of all,Chapter One has a review of affirmative action,from its origins,development,zenith to the declining and demise of this policy.Chapter Two talks about the controversies of affirmative action,which mainly includes three aspects:controversies over compensatory justice,reverse discrimination and problems of racial stigma.In Chapter Three,through the comparison between affirmative action and Chinese ethnic policies,this thesis discusses the controversies that might be faced by Chinese ethnic policies,which includes reverse discrimination and problems of stigma faced by minority students.Based on these discussions,the author offers some suggestions to Chinese ethnic policies.