Critical Analyses of Affirmative Action in the United States Higher Education System

The present paper examines the policy of positive discrimination in higher education in the United States in three analyzes: economic analysis, structuralism, and legal analysis. These three levels of analysis help to raise awareness of class issues related to higher education in this country. It first examines the concept of positive discrimination and its history in US higher education.

This research is of theoretical type and the research method is descriptive-analytical and the method of data collection is library and has been done by referring to documents, books and articles.

In order to organize this research, while observing the authenticity of the texts, honesty and fidelity have been observed.

The reduction in educational credits in each state coincides with an increase in tuition. The working class and people of color are being treated unfairly and unkindly by the higher education system through changes in positive discrimination laws, the reduction of support services for people of color, the difficult financial aid situation, and the focus on individual merit in the Supreme Court's rulings.

In the United States, positive discrimination applies almost exclusively to the oppressed and minority groups (indigenous blacks and people of color in general) and other ethnic-minority minorities (most of whom were immigrants). Positive discrimination in the American higher education system is tolerated only in one specific area, and that is the realization of diversity. The Supreme Court's approach is to abandon compensatory justice and distributive justice in relation to higher education. In addition, there is no group that can be declared the definitive beneficiary of positive discrimination programs.