Positive discrimination

The positive discrimination is a discriminatory policy (from where the name) assigning a social advantage to a category which is not judged with parity, therefore considered to be underprivileged in a field by the initiators of the aforesaid the policy.

History

Positive discrimination was created with the the United States not only in favor of the descendants of Esclave S but also for all the citizens suffering from discrimination because of their sex or their ethnic origin. Some seek to extend it nowadays in Europe for most underprivileged.

The first to use the expression Affirmative action is the US president John Fitzgerald Kennedy; it was then taken again by its successor with the White House Lyndon Johnson. Their idea was that, in spite of the laws in favor of the equality, the Blacks would remain late compared to the remainder of the American population. The goal was to make so that the Blacks are more represented in the qualified jobs, the universities, the media, etc As of the years 1960, of preferential employment are set up. But it is not a question of in no case of a policy of quotas: in 2003, the Supreme court condemned the principle of the quotas as being contrary to the equality in front of the law and the free competition. The results are considered to be convincing in the United States: in 1960,13% of the Afro-Americans belonged to the middle-classes, they are 66% in 2000.

In France, the law of the July 10th 1987 in favor of the employment of the handicapped workers imposes on very undertaken of 20 paid or to employ at least 6% of handicapped workers more. Since school year 2000-2001 of conventions ZEP/Grandes schools allow high-school pupils resulting from a zone of priority education to integrate certain universities without having to pass from contest of admission. These zones had been created in July 1981 by the minister Alain Savary with the marked objective to give more to those which have less.

A disputed expression

So some see an example of the correct Politiquement there, the word “discrimination” preserves an extremely negative connotation however. One often finds the expression “ equality of the chances ” to indicate this policy. Other people estimate that one should rather employ the expression “action positive”, literal translation of the American expression “ affirmative action ”.

Criteria of discrimination

Socio-economic discrimination

The principles of Social justice can lead to a reorientation of the public services towards neediest. It is thus a question of better differentiating the recipients from the État-providence to give more to those which have less… and generally less with those which have more.

One can also quote territorial discrimination. They are for example in the field education the zones and the networks priority education (ZEP, REFERENCE MARK) in France or the Education action zone (EAZ) in the United Kingdom.

Biological discrimination, Cultural or ethnic

It is not a question here any more of taking into account the socio-economic inequalities directly, but of being placed upstream, by compensating for other criteria which are thus considered like handicapping by the legislator. It is when these criteria refer to communities (ethnic for example) or to kinds which positive discrimination causes of the reserves. That is especially true in a country like France or such a situation runs up against the republican tradition of equality of the citizens. In the United States on the other hand the stake of the debate is completely differ: the ethnic membership was recognized there what made it possible for example to take into account the injury caused by slavery. However this method was already adopted under the name of the " parité" imposed between men and women, on the electoral rolls inter alia.

Reasons to be discrimination

According to the partisans of the “ discrimination positive ”, the unemployment and the precariousness of part of the population resulting from the visible minorities constitute a fertile compost with the decomposition of the company and the communautarism.

According to the adversaries of the “ discrimination positive ”, current unemployment strikes the French themselves, among which many graduates of quality do not find any outlet. It is thus not astonishing that the immigrants test them also difficulties.

Study practices positive discrimination

Impact on the population supported by Positive discrimination

Positive impacts

discrimination as regards education:

In England, the action especially was as regards education. By holding quotas of university inscription to a certain category of population, one allows him to be better informed. The instruction being the base of the creation of a better future and insertion in the company. These populations thus have more confidence in the future.

discrimination in employment:

The creation of quotas at the time of recruitment makes it possible this category to create a place on the job market. Moreover, it makes it possible to fight against the theory which wants that the capacities in work are related to the group of membership. It also makes it possible to ensure a certain visibility these groups and can be to help to change mentalities.

tax matter discrimination:

The tax action is for the moment the average privileged person by the French State. It makes it possible to make more profitable the use of the categories underprivileged. The rational employer, who seeks to maximize the profits is thus encouraged to engage these categories.

discrimination in political matters:

In India, 24,5 % of the stations in the public office, the colleges and the universities are reserved for the Intouchable S. That their gave a political weight because of their number. Thus, in Uttar Pradesh, the Bahujan Samaj Party , the political party of untouchable arrived at the capacity and was maintained there one year and half, allowing the integration of untouchable senior officials in the administration of the State.

Negative impacts

As regards education:

Discrimination as regards education devalues the diplomas obtained, their prestige is not more the same one. Their value also decreases for the companies, which can tend to reject more still the people members of a " group; discriminated positivement" , including those having obtained the diploma without this help. Mathieu Laine thus brings back in the great nursery the example of Stefen L. Parker, studying in right which postulated in 1980 in Harvard and was readjusted then accepted a few days after a letter of saying Harvard: " We did not know that you were black and we would actually be charm to receive you among nous". For Wool, " the suspicion the qualifications is the odious corollary of the policies of discrimination positive". Moreover, the risk of failure is higher. Positive discrimination obliges the higher establishments to recruit on a lower level in the population in difficulty.

discrimination in employment:

The quotas of employees do not prevent the continuation of one discrimination inside the company. There exist always companies which differently pay their employees according to their sex or their skin color. The quotas did not change anything with this situation.

tax matter discrimination:

The positive or negative tax incentive with certain activities forever proven true benefit proportional to the sacrifice. The tax incentive (for example free zone) can create attitudes of opportunism, harmful with the local population. Companies walking where the deductions carry them. The populations are thus found obliged to subsidize their own activity. The tax discrimination can even have a contrary negative impact with the sought-after goal. Fleurissement of the pubs for the blue message services is a consequence.

discrimination as regards integration:

The recipients of measurements of positive discriminations can be seen as of the profiteurs who obtain certain things only by the fact of belonging to a group (often ethnic or religious), in particular on behalf of the not-recipients. The positive discrimination of a group of people being inevitably the negative discrimination of the other people, the relations between the two groups can worsen, especially if discrimination in question gives the impression to support in the facts an ethnicity or religious particular. Thomas Sowell, American black economist opposed to positive discrimination, was one of the first to develop these topics, in Race and Economy.

Less will to leave itself there:

For Sowell, the Affirmative action encourages the facility and encourages the populations positively discriminated to rest on these quotas. It is according to Sowell what explains at least partly why the Porto Ricans, discriminated positively, left themselves well better there than the other American southern immigrants not helped. And Sowell to also give the example of the Irishmen who without quotas and thanks to the " freedom of travail" caught up with the other communities at the point to give a president to the United States.

Encouragement of the communautarisms

Positive discrimination is shown to nourish the communautarisms by characterizing people by their membership of a category. Thus for Joseph Macé-Scaron in Community temptation , the Community trap consists in passing from the " right to the difference with rights différents".

Impact on the nonfavoured population by positive discrimination

Positive impacts

discrimination as regards education:

Co-education is larger, the training is thus more enriching for all the pupils. The school remains/becomes a place of exchanges and reflection where the pupils learn the mixture which is gummed by our companies (chart school, residential zones for rich person…). This point is however subject to deposit (ever shown, attraction for the ZEP where diversity is however real reflecting the enthusiasm of the parents badly).

tax matter discrimination:

Activities which would be differently considered nonprofitable develop and others rejected by the company decrease.

Negative impacts

discrimination as regards education:

Not-discriminated can see itself refusing places because not being members of a group supported by these measurements.

discrimination in employment:

Not-discriminated can see itself refusing employment because not being members of a group supported by these measurements. The refusal of CV are also in the batch.

tax matter discrimination:

The taxes are more important because these measurements require means.

Political reactions

According to the cases, in particular the orientation of the moment of the various men and political parties, three opinions principal emerge:

It is a formal inequality intended to correct an inequality in fact.
It is a racist measure intended to favor in fact certain ethnicities or racial, since in all manners even the Positive discrimination based on geographical areas recuts zones having a ethnico-nun majority.
Those which consider that is to treat the populations aimed like lower and incompetents to leave itself there by them same. It is the position of Elisabeth Badinter on the parity or certain American blacks on positive discrimination.

Applications of the policy

The affirmative action in the United States

To the the United States, the affirmative action is especially applied at the time of recruitment or to the inscriptions in various programs of education since the years 1970. The employers and the universities often have a policy supporting the candidates black S, the Latino S, those of the female sex or those of poor districts. In California and in the State of New York, the immigrants, at the same time legal and illegal, are the recipients of this policy.

This policy was the subject of lawsuit on several occasions, and was shown of unconstitutionality. In 1998, L. Anita Richardson notes that the American courts generally accepted positive discrimination like a remedy against contemporary discrimination; rejecting its role in the promotion of ethnic diversity; and “that there is prone to debate… on the perenniality of the effects of last racial discrimination”. The June 28th 2007, the Supreme court prohibits positive discrimination at the entry of the American public schools, with five votes against four. The decision of the Court stipulates that “research by the schools of an estimable objective does not want to say that they are free to carry out a discrimination on the basis of race to reach it”. The questionings are also local: in 1996, the Proposal 209 restricted ethnic criteria in the admissions at the public universities.

With the population growth of the minority groups, the racial or ethnic differences are erased. Consequently, of many experts estimate that the inequalities will be reduced and that the programs of positive discrimination will become superfluous.

In France

Positive discrimination has existed in France for several years. It applies in the field of application, for example through the device set up by the law of July 10th, 1987, which imposes on the whole of the employers, among which administrations of the State as well as the public corporations in scientific, technological or cultural matter, an obligation of employment equal to 6% of the employee for the benefit of the handicapped workers.

In 1990, colonel Yves Biville, chief of the Center of studies on the selection of the personnel of the Army (Cespat), submit to the Minister for French Defense Jean-Pierre Chevènement a report containing fifty-two recommendations to support the access of the " JFOM" (young French of Maghrebian origin) with the driving licenses and the higher ranks. Jean-Pierre Chevènement publishes a directive to make apply these measurements of positive discrimination. Publication, in 1991, of an article of the lieutenant Jean-Pierre Steinhofer in the review " Armies of Aujourd'hui" (" Beur or ordinaire") conduit the army has to benefit from an administrative change (NG replaces by ADREBA) to forget to bring up to date the directive and thus not to apply it.

Starting from 2001, the Institut of political studies (IEP) of Paris was one of the first establishment to set up a programme of positive discrimination in France, the Conventions priority education (STOCK), launched by the director Richard Descoings and placed under the responsibility of Cyril Delhay. A special procedure of admission for high-school pupils coming from ZEP was set up; they are exempted examination entrance and are recruited on file and maintenance. They profit then from the normal training of the students of the IEP, which in particular enables them to occupy of the management positions in company and within the high public office.

The topic of positive discrimination was carried from the point of view of the presidential election of 2007 by Nicolas Sarkozy. Initially, the president of UMP did not exclude a positive discrimination based on the skin color: “The administrations are obliged by the law to have 6% their collaborators with a handicap. What is it, if not a quota? I would like that it is said to me why it would be normal to make positive discrimination for the women or the handicapped people, and why it would be abnormal for the compatriots of color” (the Parisian one, October 20th, 2006). In the second time, on the other hand, it clearly excluded a positive discrimination based on the skin color: “I refuse the communautarism which reduces the man to his only visible identity” (congress of UMP, January 14th, 2007).

In India

Positive discrimination is historically applied in India, in the form of reservation or Quota for the stations in the government, employment or education for the lower castes and the minorities. The first certificate of this policy date completion of the XIXe century in the Mysore, the Vadodara in the south of India and the Kolhapur in the west.

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