The industrial and economic development of the Industrial Revolution has made a significant change in the world, and human capital is vital to this success and has been playing a significant role as far back as the start of the Industrial Revolution in the seventeenth century. As the global economy continues to expand, the abuse and discrimination against minority groups also grow in the workplace and education institutions, and that creates the need to tackle discrimination through an affirmative action plan. In the year 1961, President John F Kennedy issues executive order 10925 utilized affirmative action to ensure that all federal contractors follow affirmative action to ensure that all job applicants are treated uniformly without respect to race, religion, color, sex, and nationality and founded the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. Moreover, 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964 was marked into law. Major milestone legislation was disallowing employment discrimination by large employers (over 15 employees), regardless of whether they had government contracts, and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (AAAED)
Affirmative action is the regulatory guidelines for businesses, schools, and governmental agencies, which gives rights to hiring or advancement of ethnic minorities to compensate for past victimization of that minority. Affirmative action has been one of the most divisive issues from the beginning; those who are in favor of affirmative action argue that this is the best possible solution for the long inheritance of bigotry in American culture. Adversaries of affirmative action contend that it is reverse discrimination and just wrong for the government to consider race in providing any benefits, every person should be treated as an individual and evaluated on merit. Affirmative action impacts many areas of society, in particular, employment, government contracts, and licenses and admission institutions of higher education (NCSL, 2014), and also diversity was one of the most discussed topics during the recent mid-term elections. There is a vast disparity remaining between people of color and whites in every measure of socioeconomic status; affirmative action is a law to deal with socioeconomic disparities.
Across the nation, there are many different perspectives on the impacts of affirmative action. Many consider it as an approach that gives an additional advantage to minorities in America.
Those who support and agree with affirmative action are inclined to make arguments that affirmative action is used to achieve many different objectives. The most successive goal is to remedy past segregation; we all know that American society has a history of racism. Moreover, affirmative action is an effort to stop any present and future discrimination and an attempt to erase the history of discrimination. Those who contradict affirmative action attest that any preferential treatment to minorities should be prohibited and all people should be treated as equivalent and considered based on their merits (NCSL, 2014) (Chemerinsky, page 1159-1176).
Another critical goal of affirmative action is to promote diversity in educational institutions and workplaces. Diversity promotes tolerant communities by bringing people from a variety of cultures and societies with different qualities and skill sets to their own. This rationale is often discussed concerning university admissions. The supporters have argued that race has an effect on personal experience and perception and the diverse group of students will improve the quality of education. On the other hand, opponents claim that the students or workers put into a situation through affirmative action are not entirely prepared for the job and do not add any additional benefit to the university or business (Price, 2017). Educational institutions are searching for more innovative approaches to bring diversity, but there are many examples where their action to bring diversity has been challenged. In 2014, sixty-four Asian-American recorded an objection with the Justice Department blaming Harvard University for discriminating against Asian Americans in its admission policies. The same year, Students for Fair Admissions filed a lawsuit against Harvard University over the charges of anti–Asian American bias in the admissions process (Price, 2017) (Mak, 2018). In the present worldwide multicultural working environment, it pays to be acquainted with the culture of fellow associates, students, clients, or customers, all come from different ethnic backgrounds. Workplaces can take tremendous advantage of a blend of cultures, traditions, and experiences; people from different cultural backgrounds bring new positive energy and robustness to the workplace.
Politics impact almost every part of our lives, and it is essential to stay informed about political issues since every citizen should comprehend what is happening around the country. Likewise, it is imperative to have a say in what is happening around us as the political choices individuals make will influence numerous lives. Every country needs politics and politics is how we do things (Mortensen, 2016). It is a known fact that minorities are underrepresented in politics, even after the law requested that minorities be permitted to cast a vote and after discriminatory laws like literacy tests were dropped, but still, there are ways where minority political strength was weakened by separating the minority-majority into different districts. Another objective of affirmative action is to strengthen the minority political power by realignment of election districts to increase the number of minority representation in politics, and that can be done by using race to group voters and provide minorities some political power. Although this may be true, in 1996 Bush v. Vera, the Supreme Court held that Texas redistricting plans were unconstitutional and can only be endured by the 'strict scrutiny' approach (Bush v. Vera. Oyez.).
The notion of at-will employment was first published in a legal treatise by Horace C Wood § 134, on pages 272-273 in the year 1877 (Standler, n.d). At-will employment means employees can quit their jobs for any reason, at any time and employers can also terminate employment or modify the employment term, and conditions change for a lawful reason at any time, except if there is a specific agreement between employee and employer. In the United States, most employees in the private sector are employed at will. At-will employment has become progressively increasingly mainstream after some time. This type of employment carries much resilience for both the employer and the employee. It allows both sides to take part in a reasonable, agreeable workplace with no significant commitments from either side. Employers, for instance, can change the terms of work, like compensation, benefits, or time off without any notice or repercussion (Doyle, 2018).
Regardless of the terms at-will, employees do have rights over unfair terminations, provided by the federal government and state law. The Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act (WDEA) is an Act enacted by the State of Montana in 1987. The Act supports employment at will, but the same time interprets legal action for unfair terminations. Under the law, termination will be wrong since the employee refuses to violate public policy if the layoff is not for a good cause or the business violates its human resource policies under these circumstances a terminated employee can sue the employer for wrongful termination (Lindblad, 2017).
Employment at will has many exceptional advantages. First of all, as the employee gains more confidence, and experience and learns new skills, they become a more valuable resource. At-will provides an opportunity for employees to find better job. Second, more talented employees can be promoted on merit instead of based on seniority, it is a huge motivation factor for a worker to work harder and be productive because this is an opportunity to grow into a higher and better-paying position. Eventually, more advantages accrue to employers as they can limit the compensation and benefits against the guarantee of joblessness and able force employees to deliver more without pay raise or bonuses (Gaille, 2015).
On the other hand, employment will also come with a few disadvantages and possess more significant challenges for employees. The most prominent disadvantage is the lack of job security for the at-will employee since an employer can lay off employees for any random and personal reason. Such uncertainty puts unnecessary pressure on employees which creates a very stressful environment and can impact overall productivity. Consequently, employers also do not benefit from such a stressful environment; it leads to higher employee turnover which increases overheads cost like hiring and training new employees which could be much higher than retaining good employees. Lastly, at-will employment may also trigger fear in employees, if they do not see any growth prospects will stop putting their best performance for fear of exploitation. Such situations run a risk of brain drain, where an employee uses organization resources to innovate new solutions, and later they market autonomously, which is not beneficial for either (Ryan, 2014).
In conclusion, it is a fact that an employer can terminate employment at any time with no notice and no consequences, but it does not mean they will do it. An employee should always be prepared but need not be always under constant pressure. In this digital age, every employer needs a competent and dependable workforce and will do every possible thing to hire and retain productive employees. Employment-at-will is like Walking the Thin Line; both employer and employees should take full advantage of this. The employer should use employment-at-will to motivate and reward hardworking employees by promoting them on merit instead of based on seniority. Moreover, employees should use employment-at-will to switch jobs when a better opportunity comes along and control their careers without the interference of the employer.