A Study Of The Employment Policies For Afircan Amercans In Affirmatie Action Of The United States, 1965-2000

Affirmative Action is a policy of the United States government established in 1965 in the form of executive order. Its goal was to secure equal employment of African American, and later was applied to women, the disabled, and so on. Affirmative Action in employment resulted from American political, idealistic factors and civil rights movement. But it is also the outcome of American economic policies, especially of the employment policies. Its development has been accompanying with the change of the economic policies. For the goal of the equal result, the policy ever trapped into wrong way, establishing the quota, which gave rise to extensive controversy. By utilizing lots of original documents and scholars’writings and papers, this dissertation makes a historical investigation about Affirmative Action in employment from 1965 to 2000, demonstrates the relations between the policy and American governmental economic policies, and analyzes the effectiveness and limitation.This dissertation is composed of the introduction, five chapters of main body and the conclusion. The introduction offers the purpose I conduct the research, the brief introduction of Affirmative Action study in China and abroad, the method and importance this thesis has and the innovations and shortcomings of this dissertation as well.Chapter one analyzes the connotation of Affirmative Action, retrospects the history of the policies for African American, investigates the course and characteristics of the policies in different periods from 1965 to 2000, and divides it into some stages.Chapter two mainly analyzes the African Americans’unfavorable situation in employment and its reasons, explains the establishing background of the policy in Johnson era, and concludes that the policy is the result of the government’s intervenning the employment market except for extinguishing discrimination.Chapter three examines the implementing effectiveness of Affirmative Action in Johnson era and the courses, reasons and enforcement of the policy from Nixon to Carter era as well.Chapter four discusses the evolution, causes and enforcement results of Affirmative Action from 1980s to the beginning of the 1990s.Chapter five analizes the Affirmative Action policies by Clinton Government, and the main element of African Americans’employment status in the end of the century.The conclusion makes a comment on the historical position of Affirmative Action, and analyzes the characteristics and inner contradiction of American Constitutional System that was reflected by the history of Affirmative Action.