There was a time and place for Affirmative Action, but that time has since passed. The entire purpose of affirmative action was to create further equality for minorities and women in the workplace and the college education process. However, at this point in time, the purpose of the program has been defeated and more often than not, only promotes more inequality.

Affirmative action causes institutions do have different standards based on the candidate. If an institution is feeling pressure to bring in candidates solely to promote diversity, then equality is really not being promoted at all. As Jeff Jacboy of the Boston Globe writes, minorities and women “would rise and overcome as well if only they could be liberated from the condescending mind-set that thinks it's a compliment to tell a group of college seniors that they show great promise -- for minorities." If we really want the workplace to be a fair and equal one, people should be hired based on their qualifications and not solely due to their race.

Proponents of affirmative action use racial preferences in order to “level the playing field”, while truly they are only causing a purposeless advantage for themselves. They gain lower admission standards and even unofficial racial quotas for those applying to jobs. This is not equality. This is far from the equality that affirmative action supporters say they are attempting to reach. Applying different standards to people due to race or gender is discriminatory in itself.

The solution to workplace and educational inequality does not lie in affirmative action. The true problem lies at a much earlier stage—the education that people are receiving. For example, if a minority child in the inner-city fails a test, this is not due to discrimination but is instead most likely due to the poor education that this child is receiving due to economic disparity. The affirmative action programs simply put under qualified minorities ahead of better-qualified “non-minorities”. This greatly draws away from the root of the problem. There is no doubt that there is a large difference between the education that economically disadvantaged minorities are receiving compared to better economically poised children. And this is the true problem behind workplace inequality. An affirmative action program only distracts from the solution that needs to be found for this problem. It does nothing at all to solve it. For example, if a black high school student is accepted to a school such as Harvard, it should be because that student is qualified. It should not be because of such fears as being accused of showing a sign of institutionalized racism.