Does Affirmative Action present more benefits than disadvantages? Affirmative Action policies were implemented to address favoritism or lack of diversity in many educational and occupational spheres.
On one side, Affirmative Action adds different perspectives and experiences to a learning environment that wouldn’t be there if not for the program.

Affirmative Action promotes diversity and ensures that a diverse environment can be created.
Yale University defends Affirmative Action by stating, “Diversity encourages students to question their own assumptions, to test received truths, and to appreciate the complexity of the modern world.” Harvard states that Affirmative Action is an essential tool in its efforts to build a welcoming and representative campus. Moreover, this increased diversity will lessen stereotypes because there will be more interactions between groups that may not choose to interact with each other in “real” life. Without these harmful stereotypes, people will be regarded more equally, meaning that various gaps, such as gender, wage, and minority gaps, will decrease.

Another huge benefit is that this initiative allows various people to pursue a career they may have only considered with the program’s help. There are significant gaps for women in specific fields that could potentially benefit from the diversity that Affirmative Action promotes.

Additionally, in the US, many minority groups are at a societal disadvantage because of their historical treatment. With a solution like Affirmative Action, those minority households will begin to reverse the societal losses they have experienced.

Finally, many students also favor Affirmative Action; Ishika Vyas goes to Harvard and said that this initiative is crucial because “you can’t remove things like ethnic and racial identity from someone — that shapes their life.”

Although some may say that artificially encouraging diversity doesn’t follow societal norms, humanity will become better when we can learn from our differences and do something about them instead of being complacent with our systemically biased world.