Affirmative Action Is Reverse Discrimination When the civil rights bill was being debated on the Senate floor, Barry Goldwater predicted that this particular bill could be subject to abuse. Herbert Humphrey, however, stated that he would eat every page of the bill if it were ever used to justify discrimination against someone because of race or sex. The bill eventually passed and became the Civil Rights Act. From college admissions to government contracts, the Civil Rights Act has been grossly abused by giving race and gender primary consideration in admissions and hiring, resulting in blatant reverse discrimination. Paul Craig Roberts and Larry Stratton, co-authors of The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy, document the quiet change of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from a statute banning preferences based on race and gender into a weapon for force employers to adopt and implement quotas. This change is not so silent today. Roberts and Stratton show that "quotas are based on an intentionally misinterpretation of Title VII and are strictly illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1964." An explicit example of this intentional misinterpretation, or abuse, of the Civil Rights Act is when a person is fired to meet a quota. On August 8, the federal Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit agreed. The court ruled that the Board of Education in Piscataway, NJ, violated the Civil Rights Act when it fired Sharon Taxman, an "overrepresented" Jewish school teacher, to make room for a woman of color under the plan to affirmative action by the school system. The court ordered the school district to pay $144,000 in back pay. The justices' decision was based on their investigation of the legislative history of Title VII... middle of the paper... are they black? There is no doubt that racism existed in our society and still exists. today, but the solution is not to reverse discrimination. It's hard to imagine that segregation in our schools was still legal in California in 1974, it's even harder to imagine that college admissions are still based on race in 1996. The solution to preferences in college hiring and admissions should be sanctions more severe for those who discriminate on the basis of race or sex. Besides, it's a little late to squeeze unqualified students into graduate schools. We should work with these students in elementary schools. Our universities and government are unlikely to seek logical solutions because of their reputation for putting band-aids on social problems. There is no doubt that if Herbert Humphrey were here today, he would eat a lot of paper.