This extra-credit assignment is entirely optional; if you skip this assignment, there will be another opportunity at the end of the semester with a different topic.
You can earn up to 5 semester points with this assignment (see chart at end of assignment).
As an extra-credit assignment, the essay can not hurt semester grade. Even if your score on this assignment is lower than your average score for the semester, the extra points you potentially can win will only help you. In short, it’s worth doing this assignment and taking it seriously. (In contrast, since you can not receive extra semester points if you get less than a 70/100 on the assignment, there’s little point in doing it unless you have set aside enough time to do the essay well).
be sure to name the homework file you upload to blackboard:
last name_first two letters of first name_assignment number
(example: if Albert Einstein were submitting this assignment, his file name would be Einstein_al_EC1.docx)
In this 500 to 750-word assignment, you should construct an argument that either agrees, disagrees, or some combination of agree and disagree with the op-ed piece below (“With Workplace Affirmative Action, Let’s Help those who Actually Need It.”) As always in this class, you must marshal evidence in support of your argument for agreeing or disagreeing.
You have three possible sources for this evidence:
- The New York Times articles that you read for this week.
- The research study discussed in those articles: PDF
- For understanding the purpose of Affirmative Action in employment, limit yourself to the following (and rather representative) statement from a state HR office:
Affirmative Action is a program of positive action, undertaken with conviction and effort to overcome the present effects of past practices, policies, or barriers to equal employment opportunity and to achieve the full and fair participation of women, minorities and individuals with disabilities found to be underutilized in the workforce based on availability.The purpose of affirmative action is to establish fair access to employment opportunities in the relevant job market. Affirmative Action policies and programs are tools whereby additional efforts are made to recruit, hire and promote qualified women, minorities and individuals with disabilities.
To be clear, neither the assignment nor Prof. Umbach assert that the following opinion piece is true (although Prof. Umbach does assume that the study under discussion is as close to truth as social science allows us to get right now–but the study is distinct from the interpretation of the study in the opinion piece below).
OPINION PIECE:
“With Workplace Affirmative Action, Let’s Help Those Who Actually Need It”
By Ima Snarkyone, PhD
It is time to refocus our affirmative action efforts so that the benefits assist those who are most in need of a helping hand rather than continuing to devote benefits to those who no longer need it–or at least no longer need it as much as others. In particular, we should redirect all of our current efforts on behalf of African Americans toward African-American males. African-American women, it turns out, no longer need the benefits of Affirmative Action in the workplace.
The reason for this proposed change of policy comes from some good news about black women contained in a massive new study by Harvard’s politically left-leaning Equality of Opportunity Project. The EOP study documents the extent to which black women now succeed in the workplace. Indeed, black women now actually outperform white women in terms of individual earnings (once you control for parental earnings).
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In contrast, black men still face profound economic barriers in the workplace. All of our Affirmative Action efforts on behalf of African Americans should, accordingly, benefit them. They need it far more than do their female counterparts.
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This proposal makes sense not only because it is wise but because it is fair–and fairness matters in politics. Continued political support for Affirmative Action depends on society’s sense that the policy is fair. Defenders of Affirmative Action would be hard pressed to defend policies that deny opportunities to one group in order to assist another group that was, empirically, not in need of such assistance to achieve equality of opportunity in the workplace. What could we possible say to an equally qualified white woman turned down for a promotion in favor of a black woman when black women now out-earn white women in the workplace (controlling for parental income)?
And to be clear, the policy proposal here is limited to the workplace. Some forms of Affirmative Action have rationales other than to make up for past racist practices. Schools, for example, now justify Affirmative Action on the basis of diversity’s claimed benefits for all in an educational setting. So, although–as the Harvard researchers found–it is now a reality that “back women have higher college attendance rates than white men,” (again, controlling for parental income), schools’ interests in the pedagogical benefits of diversity might still justify continuing Affirmative Action for black women at schools–even if the numbers make it clear black women no longer encounter the trouble they once did as a consequence of their race.
Likewise, there could very well be reasons for Affirmative Action for black women to compensate for discrimination in life’s other realms. Black girls, for example, get suspended from schools at higher rates than white girls.Targeted programs to compensate for such area-specific discrimination, if and where it can be shown to exist, may make a great deal of sense.
But in the workplace, black women are now no longer in need of affirmative action on the basis of their racial identity. Let’s use what resources and levers we have to help uplift the half of the black community that really, really needs it: black men.
END OF OPINION PIECE
WRITING REQUIREMENTS AND TIPS
1. Length: 500-750 words (about 2– 3 pages of double-spaced, 12-point font text)
2. You will want to organize around your essay around a concise thesis statement that appears near the beginning of your paper.
3. Be sure to underline your thesis statement (5 points off if you do not).
4. Be sure to have at least 6 direct quotations (I don’t need a full citation)
5. When using direct quotations from the reading, be sure to use method 3 or 4 from HW 1 and also be sure to reduce your quotations to ten for fewer words. See here on how to reduce quotations.
6. When making your arguments, be sure to ground those arguments in specific evidence.
7. Be sure in those paragraphs where you make points from evidence to organize those paragraph in the familiar cl/ev/wa format from HW 1 and that you put a (CL) in front of your paragraph’s claim, an (EV) before the evidence, and a (WA) in front of the warrant. (Keep in mind (A) not all paragraphs should be in cl/ev/wa format–just those that make a point from evidence. Also keep in mind (B) that the cl/ev/wa format is for organizing individual paragraphs rather than for organizing whole papers. A strong paper will likely have a series of cl/ev/wa paragraphs as well as a number of paragraphs that are not in that format.)
8. No outside research is required or even permitted for this paper; use just the three sources defined above.
GRADING
I will grade your essay using this rubric: paper_rubric_2017
PAPER GRADE / ADDITIONAL SEMESTER POINTS
100 / 5
95 – 99 / 4.5
90 – 94 / 4
85 – 89 / 3
80 – 84 / 2
75 – 79 / 1.5
70 – 74 / 1
Below 69 you will receive no additional semester points (but the assignment can’t hurt you)
