Affirmative Action

“Affirmative Action” was initiated in the early 1960’s by President John F. Kennedy in an attempt to improve employment and educational opportunities for people belonging to a minority population (“Affirmative Action”). After the assassination of JFK, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. This act started a wave of affirmative action that would later impact every American opportunity (“Civil Rights Act”). At the end of the decade businesses across America were enforcing provisions set forth by the Civil Rights Act, along with other legal enforcements that assisted minority groups of race, disability, gender, ethnicity and age. Though he was against the idea of meeting quotas in the workplace, President Richard Nixon in 1969 used the city of Philadelphia as a test when he “required federal contractors to show ‘affirmative action’ to meet the goals of increasing minority employment’ (Brunner). The quotas also found a way into the feder...