Essay - The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Cra) Formally Ended Racial...

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA) formally ended racial and gender discrimination by any entity doing business with or receiving money from the federal government. Nearly all institutions of higher education receive federal funding in some form, so the ***** Rights act had an immediate effect on admissions policies and student recruitment as universities endeavored to comply with ***** law (Springer, 2003).

Most universities had actually stopped practicing overt racial discrimination prior to passage ***** the CRA. The landmark Brown v. Board of Education case (1954) outlawed racial discrimination in public *****al institutions, and by the time ***** the passage of the CRA all southern universities were officially desegregated. In the north and west, with much more racially homogenous populations, ***** end of desegregation was far less significant (Grofman, 2000).

***** main effect of the ***** for all American universities ***** ***** emergence of the policy of affirmative action. Affirmative ***** was initially proposed by President Johnson in an executive order *****ly following passage of ***** CRA. Calling on federal contractors to take "affirmative action" to ensure that they did not discriminate, Johnson initiated a policy of inclusion that has been criticized as "reverse *****" (Gurin, 2002). In a sense th*****t criticism is accurate, because ***** take positive steps to include minorities as opposed to merely refraining from d*****criminating against them. However ***** minorities ********** face systemic *****d economic obstacles ***** achievement in areas such as higher education, affirmative ***** is *****tended to redress the imbalance and ensure minority participation.

Affirmative action has ***** ***** main result of the ***** for ***** world of higher education. It appears that at first universities instituted affirmative action in order to avoid prosecution by the *****, but now affirmative action is generally justified in terms of the diversity it creates ***** the ***** population (*****, 2003). A recent Supreme Court decision upholding the University of Michigan's affirmative ***** policy notes ***** universities do not violate the constitution's equal protection clause ***** discriminating in favor of ***** students if that discrimination is designed to promote student *****. The Court *****ed that institutions of higher learning have an interest in achiev*****g diversity because of the educational and intellectual benefits ***** having d*****ferent perspectives represented (Springer, 2003).

Therefore although conservatives have criticized affirmative action as hypocritical because it discriminates ***** a view tow*****rd ending *****, it is clear that colleges and universities these days want the benefits of a more diverse student ***** *****nd will pursue adm*****sions ***** commensurate with that diversity. Colleges often relax standards for other admissions categories (legacies, athletes, musicians) when ***** feel it is their interest to do so. Affirmative action, which began ***** a w*****y ***** prevent discrimination, ***** is used as a tool to promote diversity (Gurin, 2002).

Civil rights legislation in America was ***** intended to protect the legal rights of African Americans ***** ***** abolition of slavery in 1865, and at ***** the ***** of affirm*****ive action were limited to black students (*****, 2000). However President John*****n