Affirmative action

Affirmative action, U.S. program designed to increase the numbers of minority group members or of women in jobs or schools from which they were previously wholly or partly excluded. Affirmative action flourished in the 1960s under the leadership of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and was institutionalized by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972. Critics have charged that the racial quotas and timetables of some affirmative action plans bring about reverse discrimination. Affirmative action was dealt a sharp blow in 1978, when the Supreme Court, in the Bakke case, ruled against the use of strict racial quotas.

See also: Bakke case.