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Affirmative action began with President Kennedys Executive Order 10925 on March 6, 1961. This required employers funded by federal dollars (contractors) to hire a quota of non-white males in order to increase diversity in the workplace, later changed from quota to "goal." The intent of affirmative action was to remedy historic discrimination practices (Mayer pp. 12/50), and it was followed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited employers from practicing discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. Today even though outright discrimination is banned, discrimination is still prolific. To remedy this, instead of using the antiquated and controversial solution of affirmative action, equal opportunity education and policies are a better means to promote and ensure diversity in the workplace.

Since Affirmative action was signed and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, the Federal Government has taken steps to narrow the application of these laws and reduce means to enforce them. For example, in the 1995 Supreme Court case Adarand Constructors v. Pena, the courts ruling required federally funded contractors to establish affirmative action programs only if there was a compelling national interest to do so, and the program must limit the impact to white males (Watterson, 1996). This is in line with the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law. Another example first during the Reagan administration and then most recently in the Trump administration, is funding cuts against the Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCCP), which oversees the enforcement affirmative action and civil rights laws, (Miller, 2019). These trends indicate the Federal Governments acknowledgment that affirmative action is no longer as necessary to level the playing fields as it was in 1961.

However, data shows that businesses still tend to hire people who will better fit into the organizational culture, look more like themselves, or hire candidates who are generally more attractive. The employer justifies this by claiming a merit based hiring system,thereby exhibiting a bias that the employer may not even know exists (Foley, 2019, pp. 35-37). Without intervention, there is still a bias to hire a non-diverse workforce.

A better solution than legally requiring a company to hire someone who is not as qualified as someone else is to enforce the Civil Rights Act for fair hiring and to implement equal opportunity programs to foster a diverse and thriving workplace. After all, a consequence of affirmative action versus merit based hiring is that people would question the new persons competence. Are they here because they help the company or school meet the affirmative action quota, or are they here because they know their job. Affirmative action was needed to amend the historical policies that created a lack of diverse workplaces and educational institutions in the first place, but for it to remain in place is in itself discriminatory, and calls into question a persons competence if the office gossip is that they were hired to meet the affirmative action goal, even if they were the most qualified.