Black Youth’s Access to Higher Education (Research Paper Sample)

Black youth’s access to higher education
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Black youth’s access to higher education
Youths and young adults always have great potential to succeed when exposed to viable opportunities. This happens because youths tend to have a positive mentality towards life and fresh ideas, which, when implemented rightly, create a platform for success. In recent years, it is evident that discrimination has denied black youths’ higher education which has led to an increase in unemployment and social evils such as crime, drug abuse, and domestic violence. At the State University of New York (SUNY), a policy on equal opportunities is enacted to reduce the effect of ongoing discrimination on black people. It is intended to reach these black youths and offer them equal opportunities to acquire higher education. This policy is needed to safeguard education opportunities that may cease to exist if there lacks an obligation to act fairly. The policy on equal opportunities faces huge opposition posing a dilemma of whether it is right to divert opportunities to qualified minorities and those who are underrepresented in society.
It is argued that the rules and regulations of law outlined in the affirmative action policy are unfavorable as they focus on improving the lifestyles of minorities at the expense of others. The policies are termed as unethical with claims that they encourage reverse discrimination. Opponents argue about the policies' advantages and disadvantages, citing that even if the black youths are given the opportunities to higher learning and succeed, employers question their success on whether they joined school due to high qualifications or as a favor by the policies (Bhojani et al., 2019). This comes with the belief that those favored by affirmative action policies may not be as productive at work as those qualified to join higher education.
Affirmative action policy should be perceived as an important tool to end discrimination. Its primary purpose was to oppose acts antecedent to racial and discriminatory characteristics such as slavery and violation of women's and children's rights during its formation and implementation stages. However, its role is quickly diversified into dealing with societal problems and providing long-lasting solutions.
Agenda Setting
Governmental agendas are set based on problems, politics, and visible participants. Firstly, some issues attract more attention than others. This is influenced by indicators of the problem measured in magnitudes, focusing on events such as disasters or crises with high magnitude and feedback from officials about a prevailing situation (Kingdon, 2001). Second, politics play a major role in explaining high or low agenda prominence. Politics and elections bring about new administration with powerful agenda setters. The new administration comes along with a change in agendas that fit into their political spheres. Third, there is the influence of visible and hidden participants. According to Kingdon (2001), visible participants such as the president and high-level appointees that receive high recognition from the press and the public affect the agenda, while hidden participants such as academic specialists, career bureaucrats, and congressional staff affect the alternatives.
The affirmative action policy was initiated in 1965 by the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. It became a federal agenda due to the prevailing problems of denied opportunities for African Americans and an increase in discrimination. Discrimination and unequal fair distribution of opportunities in the United States had become rampant and gained a lot of attention. Its effects were huge, with firm indicators of its negative impact on African American society. This way, it became a focusing event that forced the government officials to intervene and formulate a bill to vote in the affirmative action policy. The running government at the time participated in developing and implementing the affirmative action policy. In this case, the government and the Supreme Court acted as the visible participants in change-making. The Supreme Court began imposing restrictions on race-based cases and complaints. The government participated by ensuring equal distribution of opportunities among all. Later on, affirmative action included women's rights and is now gaining momentum on black youths’ access to a better future through higher learning.
The theory on the influence of politics and political streams in agenda-setting and decision-making begins from a simple model of political society. Since time immemorial, the United States has been a political society; therefore, agendas set, laws enacted, and policy implementation has political influence. According to Stone (1997), public policy is about a community trying to accomplish something together as one. This phenomenon of collective intention has a high possibility of having political influence. True to this, the affirmative action policy is associated with outstanding political figures such as President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. They placed such policies on their political gains. Affirmative policies are now seen in different places worldwide, even beyond the United States. Therefore, there was a confluence of politics involved in enacting the policies.
Debates on how rational bureaucracies are in the decision-making process have brought lots of controversies in decisions concerning the affirmative action policy. Lindblom's classic article states that the US executive bureaucracy formulates policy using restricted policy analysis bounded rationality and limited or no theory (Lindblom 1963). His fellow scholars interested in simplified decision-making in bureaucracies foreshadowed more recent attention to how humans make extremely quick decisions with very little information in various respects.
The science of muddling through developed an ideal method for developing public policies called the rational comprehensive. According to this method, policymakers begin by evaluating values and objectives before handling any specific policy issue. Next is exploring and thoroughly assessing all alternatives and considering all possible aspects. In the third and final phase, administrators select alternatives that are seen to be the most successful in delivering the greatest value in meeting the first-step objectives (Lindblom 1963). Policies that undergo this process have high success potential.
A comprehensive analysis of the problem, alternatives, and viable solutions was conducted in the initial stages of making the affirmative action policy. It is also important to involve the public in policies that concern them and affects their well-being (Dinica 2018). The possibility of it becoming a federal agenda solely depended on the outcome of the analysis and the magnitude of how the public welcomes it. The affirmative action policy followed the required process for its enactment. Opponents may refute this fact by focusing on the confluence of politics in its formulation and implementation. Still, evidence shows that the political streams positively impacted and were not selfish or self-centered motives.
Policy Design
Individuals, organizations, institutions, and policies have a purpose, aim, or goal to guide their progress. A goal is an objective that someone or something strives to reach. The affirmative action policy aims to create opportunities for a group of individuals known to be underrepresented from having access to certain privileges. Educational and training experiences for such unrepresented groups have continued to be separate and unequal. Many who succeed in getting educational programs to attend schools that are predominantly minority that are located in central cities and less financed than those in other urban areas and provinces. Analysis of data prepared by the school management and administration in New York shows that the schools have fewer resources from a qualified teacher to access academic materials. The affirmative action policy aims to provide equal distribution in the school system and open up opportunities for all. Many minorities and economically disadvantaged black youths living in poor urban districts. The higher learning programs aim to create ways for black youths to have equal opportunities in those programs as white youths. This motivates them and makes room for the growth and empowerment of the black youths.
Creating a framework that is easily adaptable and flexible is important in policymaking. This framework is an assurance to success as it builds up from prevailing conditions and problems to create solutions (Ingram, Schneider, & DeLeon, 2007). The affirmative action policy aims at solving several problems. First, it eliminates inequality and prioritizes benefits to students of all rac