thesis statement on racial equality

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5 examples of thesis statements about racism for your next paper.

By Evans Apr 28 2021

Racism is a hot topic worldwide. It is one of the topics that never lack an audience. As expected, racism is also one of the most loved topics by teachers and even students. Therefore, it is not a surprise to be told to write an essay or a  research paper  on racism. You need to come up with several things within an incredible paper on racism, the most important one being a thesis statement. The term thesis statement sends shivers down the spine of many students. Most do not understand its importance or how to come up with a good thesis statement. Lucky for you, you have come to the right place. Here, you will learn all about  thesis statement  and get to sample a few racist thesis statements.

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Tips to writing a strong racism thesis statement

Keep it short.

A thesis statement is supposed to appear in the first paragraph of your essay. However, this does not mean that it should be the entire paragraph! A strong thesis statement should be one sentence (not an annoyingly long sentence), usually placed as the last sentence in the first paragraph.

Have a stand

A thesis statement should show what you aim to do with your paper. It should show that you are aware of what you are talking about. The thesis statement prepares the reader for what he or she is about to read. A wrong thesis statement will leave the reader of your paper unsure about your topic choice and your arguments.

Answer your research question

If you have been tasked with writing a  research paper  on why the Black Lives Matter movement has successfully dealt with racism, do not write a thesis statement giving the movement's history. Your thesis statement should respond to the research question, not any story you feel like telling. Additionally, the thesis statement is the summary of your sand and answer to the question at hand.

Express the main idea

A confused thesis statement expresses too many ideas while a strong, suitable one expresses the main idea. The thesis statement should tell the reader what your paper is all about. It should not leave the reader confused about whether you are talking about one thing or the other.

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Thesis Statements About Racism Samples

Racism in workplace thesis statement examples.

Racism is so rampant in the workplace. Thousands face discrimination daily in their workplaces. While this is definitely bad news, it gives us more data to choose from when working on an essay or research paper on racism in the workplace. Here are a few examples of thesis statements about racism in the workplace:

1.       Despite being in the The 21st century, racial discrimination is still rampant in the workplace. The efforts made by governments and world organizations have not helped to do away with this discrimination completely.

2.       Even with the unity that comes with digitalism, colour remains the one aspect of life that has continually caused a rift in this life. A lot of efforts have turned futile in the war against racism. The workplace is no exception. It is infiltrated with racial ideologies that remain within man's scope despite the professionalism within the workplace.

3.       Systemic racism is no new concept. It remains the favoured term with the tongues of many after food and rent. This is an indicator of how rooted the world is when it comes to the issue of racism. The now world has been configured to recognize racial differences and be blind to human similarity. Organizations have been established upon this social construct, and more often than it has led them into a ditch of failure. The loot that comes with racism is of great magnitude to bear.

Thesis statement about Racism in schools

Many academic institutions have been recognized for producing students who have passed with distinctions. Unfortunately, behind these overwhelming results lies a trail of many students who have suffered racism and have missed the honors board because of the color differences. Let's look at some of the examples of thesis statements on racism in schools:

1.       Merit should be the S.I unit upon which humanity is graded. Unfortunately, this is not the case, especially in schools, for the new merit score is the person's color. Many have found their way to the honour's board not because of merit but because they of the same color affiliation as the teacher.

2.       Enlightenment and civilization have found their way to the world through one important institution called schools. We owe that to it. Unfortunately, even with the height to which the world has reached civilization and enlightenment, one area has been left out and remains unaddressed- the world view of color. Despite the light and glamour, we see globally, one predominant view is called race. We continue to paint the world based on human color, even in schools.

3.       Bullying falls among the vices that have dire consequences to the victim. One of the spheres to which bullying exists is the sphere of color and race within the context of schools. Many student's confidence and esteem have been shuttered only because they are black or white. Many have receded to depression because they feel unwanted in the schools. One of the prominent times within American History is the Jim Crow Era, where racial segregation in schools within North Carolina was rampant. We saw schools have a section for white students and a separate section for black students within this era. The prevailing flag was black and white, and racism was the order of the day.

Final Thought

Coming up with a thesis statement does not have to difficult. No, not at all. Evaluate the topic or question and express yourself through the thesis statement from your stance or the answer. Mastering this one key in writing exams or assignments is one of the keys to scaling up the ladder of lucrative grades. However, practice is a discipline that will see you become a pro in writing a prolific strong, and catchy thesis statement. Henceforth, regard yourself as a pro, regard yourself as the best in thesis statement writing. If you are still having trouble with coming up with an excellent thesis statement, do not beat yourself up because of it.  Paper per hour  has the  best writers  who can help you with all your racism thesis statement needs.

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How to Write a Racism Thesis Statement: A Step-by-Step Guide (With Examples)

Jul 20, 2023

Jul 20, 2023 | Blog

As a student, you will handle many subjects and assignments.

One topic that is popular for essays and research papers is Racism.

Many resources are on the topic, so students assume a racism essay is easy.

The challenge you will face with a racism essay is not content but a thesis statement.

The racism thesis statement should be powerful and something your audience can understand and relate to.

This article will provide helpful guidelines and tips on writing a racism thesis statement and examples of powerful racist thesis statements.

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What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement is the backbone of a persuasive paper.

The thesis states your position or opinion as a factual claim and guides readers through their journey with you in this essay.

I am informing them on how they will navigate through it.

A good thesis statement is the equivalent of a preacher giving a sermon or a politician making an announcement.

As you craft your paper’s introduction, your goal will be to pique interest by announcing what you’re going to say in-depth throughout the rest of your essay.

Do you know how a preacher or politician might say, “Here’s what I’m going to tell you”?

The thesis statement is your announcement of what you’re trying to convey.

Difference between a TOPIC and a THESIS STATEMENT

A topic is a subject or good idea you would like to explore further.

A thesis statement is a specific argumentative stance you will take on the subject.

For example, Racism is a topic, while a thesis statement about Racism could be:

“While racism remains a problem in America, it can be reduced or potentially eliminated through the effective implementation of diversity training programs in schools and corporate institutions.”

How do I get started with writing a thesis statement on racial discrimination?

Use these three steps:

(1) brainstorm what you think

(2) refine your idea

(3) rewrite your idea in the form of a central claim

Let’s use a hypothetical sociology class assignment asking you to construct a response to the racism problem on our college campus.

Step 1: Brainstorm what you think 

You start by writing, “Racism is a prominent issue on our college campus.”

Even though this is a great starting point, it is not well-defined. It’s’ simply restating the assignment.

At this point, what you need to do is to brainstorm. On this given topic, what do you think about it?

What’s your opinion on the given topic?

How will you support your opinion?

What examples and facts can you provide?

Try putting these questions on paper and writing down your answers. You will then use the solutions you wrote down to formulate a stronger racism thesis statement.

Step 2: Refine your idea

One of the proven best methods of doing this is using the following model:

On a piece of paper, write this: “I think that ____________.

Using your initial brainstorming idea, fill in the blank.

In our case, it will be this: “I think that racism remains a problem on our college campus.”

While you have rewritten your rough idea at this stage, it is starting to form a thesis.

Next, complete this model as you continue building your thesis: I think racism Racism remains a problem on our college campus because __________.

Then you write: IRacism Racism remains a problem on our college campus because it does not require mandatory diversity training for all of its students.

Okay, now you are progressing and heading in a good direction.

Let’s reword the thesis to make it appear more “academic.”

Step 3: Rewrite your idea in the form of a central claim 

We need to replace the word “you” to make the thesis statement appear less personal and like the main claim.

To achieve this, delete the “I think that” from the sentence:

“Racism remains a problem on our college campus because the college does not require mandatory diversity training for all of its students.”

Hurray! You now have your thesis statement—many congratulations.

Essential details to keep in mind when writing a racism thesis statement

1) your racism thesis statement should appear at the beginning of the paper.

When writing a Racism essay on Racism, the thesis statement is important.

Readers should be given a clear idea of what your essay will cover and how it will unfold.

The racism thesis statement is an outlook for the rest of your paper in the introductory paragraph.

The introductory paragraph should clarify that you’re approaching this topic from all angles and know how complicated this issue can be in today’s society.

2) Your theRacismatement on Racism should give direction to the rest of your paper

A thesis statement on Racism gives your reader direction and provides several reasons for elaborating on a specific claim.

If you wish to accomplish this, your statement should expRacismhe the idea of Racism in-depth with different examples that will persuade readers.

For example: ”Racism does not exist” while still, an argument is insufficient as it has a false sense of structure.

However, if your thesis is that “racism does not exist because antiracist movements have grown in power and number over the years,” you can provide two reasons to support this claim within one sentence.

Such shapes the rest of your paper while leaving much time for evidence discussion later.

Such gives the paper the needed shape as evidence is discussed in detail to support this claim.

3) Ensure that you have a debatable argument

Although it’s important to question any information you are given, there is a certain knowledge that the public already values.

For exampRacismeryone, he knows Racism is a social and moral vice.

This means coming up with such a topic would not interest their audience.

Your argument becomes a racism thesis statement once you add an aspect.

For instance, oRacismld says, “Racism is the most harmful social and moral vice on earth. we might lose our unique identities and multicultural features if not eradicated soon enough.”

4) Keep your Racism thesis statement short!

It’s effortless to make your racism essay more interesting if you keep it short.

If you pick a broad topic, the magnitude of information will almost certainly give you trouble.

A good thesis statement should be small and localized rather than large or generalizing.

For example: “White police brutality on black people among many other things shows that Racism still exists in the United States” would make a powerful claim about something that was happening more often now than before

Tips On How To Write A Racism Thesis Statement

Before writing your thesis statement on Racism, consider the following guidelines.

Find a racism topic or issue to write about

Racism is a broad issue that continues to plague the world even today.

Therefore, finding an informative topic from which you can develop a thesis statement shouldn’t be difficult.

You can see Racism approach Racism through other social issues such as art, politics, economy, equitability, poverty, and history.

2. Pick a topic that is interesting to you

You might not be familiar with all the Racism surrounding Racism.

As asRacismoned earlier, Racism is a broad topic; there are many approaches you can take in your paper.

Therefore, to have an easier time developing a thesis, pick a racist topic that interests you.

For instance, if you are conversant with the history of America, your thesis statement could focuRacismhe the effects of Racism during the Civil Rights Movement that began in 1954 and ended in 1968.

3. Hook your reader

As you write your thesis statement, try to include a hook.

A hook is a statement that grabs the attention of a reader.

Try hooking your reader by relating your thesis to popular culture.

You could even refer to current issues on the news or relate to popular television programs, movies, or books.

4. Avoid offensiveRacismage

Remember, Racism is a personal issue; it is open to bias depending on your thinking.

Therefore, most of the issues surrounding this topic are controversial.

Avoid offensive and rude language when discussing a controversial topic in an academic paper.

Examples Of Racism Thesis Statements

It would help if you had a well-thought-out and well-constructed thesis statement to get a good score in your racism-related research paper or essay.

The following are examples of thesis statements on different racism topics.

Existence of Racism

Such an essay tries to prove that racial segregation is still a significant social problem.

Therefore, your thesis statement should focus on the problems racial segregation causes.

Consider the following example:

It is a fact that police killings involving people of color are more than white people. Joshua Correll of the University of Colorado confirmed this when he designed a game where the participants played cops. The game results indicated that, despite the people playing cop, they were more willing to kill a person of color and showed hesitation when the suspect was a white persRacismis. Racism continues to plague society.

Use our free Thesis Statement Generator Tool Here .

Workplace-related Racism

Racism is a form of prejudice often experienced in a workplace environment.

A workplace powerful racism thesis statement could read as follows:

Prejudice in a workplace environment is a backward practice that undermines productivity. In the professional sphere, white people are considered mentally superior, and therefore they get the top jobs that pay higher wages. Blacks are considered physically endowed and land physical labor jobs, which generally pay lower.

Anti-racism movements

Anti-racism is a phrase coined by people who formed movements to fight Racismnsequences of Racism.

Martin Luther King Jr led the greatest antiracist movement between the early 50s and the late 60s.

Another key antiracist figure was Nelson Madiba Mandela of South Africa.

Anti-racism also covers the beliefs and policies set to combat racial prejudice.

An anti-racism essay thesis statement should evoke emotion from a reader.

The following is an example:

Anti-racism movement leaders were treated inhumanely; Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years, and Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated. But, society today would not be as egalitarian as it is without them. Their sacrifices are the sole reason blacks and whites can walk on the same street and work together to create a brighter future.

Cause and effect

You can choose to write about Racism and the effect of Racism.

For example, ignoRacismis a cause of Racism that results in fear and eventually extreme violence.

The following is an example of a thesis statement that focuses on ignorance and fear as thRacismary causes of Racism.

Undoubtedly, Racism has negative consequences, the key among them being fear and violence, resulting from a need to protect themselves. Racism major cause of Racism is ignorance. Uneducated and unexposed feel threatened by people of a different race. Such people condone and practice this prejudice without considering its negative effects and consequences on the individuals they discriminate against and society.

Racism Thesis statements based on art and literature

Books, music, and movies cover a wide variety of racist topics.

The following are examples of literary artworks you can base a racism essay on:

Othello is a play by Shakespeare that addresses some delicate sociRacismssues such as Racism.

You could develop a thesis statemeRacismhlighting Racism in the play.

Othello, who was black, was highly disrespected by Lago and other characters such as Emilia, Roderigo, and Brabantio. These characters labeled him ”Barbary horse,” ”an old black ram,” ”thick lips,” and other demeaning names. He was also abused for marrying a Venetian woman. All this shows a strong conviction that one race is superior and a barbaric intolerance towards the ”inferior” race.

2. To kill a mockingbird

This book by Harper Lee is popular because it portrays the struggles of a black man in the southern states in the early 20 th century.

The book is a good source for Racism essays as it depicts Racism and its effects easily and comprehensibly.

The following is a good example of a racist thesis statement from To Kill a Mocking Bird :

Tom Robinson was suspected of murdering Mayella Ewell, a white woman, and was sentenced not because of any evidence but because he was black. Like Atticus Finch, Scout, and Jem, who tried to defend him, White characters were given shaming names such as ”Nigger lovers.” The story in the book clearly shows the tribulations a black man went through and how his word meant nothing.

3. Disney films

Disney films are popular for their fascinating stories and world-class acting and production.

However, scrutiny of several films will realize a certain degree of racial prejudice in how the films portray characters.

The following is an example of a thesis statement focusing on racial prejudice in Disney films:

There is a significant degree of racial prejudice in how Disney portrays characters in their films. For example, in Jungle Book, the gorillas communicated in an African vernacular language. Another example is Lady and the Tramp, where the cat villains had slanted eyes and spoke with an East Asian accent. The film production company portrays protagonists as white and antagonists as people of color.

4. Advertisements

The advertisement sector also depicts racial prejudice.

To demonstrate, consider this thesis statement:

Several surveys show that black people are underrepresented in commercials, mainstream media, and online ads. According to the US Census Bureau 2010 records, blacks  and other racial minorities represent 30%. Yet, only 7% of ads involve black people, while other racial minorities are hardly ever represented.

Racism is a fairly easy subject for an essay and research paper .

However, it has so many sources and different points of view that selecting one idea to focus on in creating a thesis statement can be problematic.

But, with the guidelines shared above, developing a thesis statement for your racism essay will not be as difficult.

Remember, you need to let the reader know your point of view and demonstrate your objectiveness on the issue.

Examples of thesis statements on Racism

• Racism worldwide can end if the global collaboration and interracial and intercultural communication continue to increase.
• Racial minorities in America still face covert prejudice despite America’s institutional and societal changes in the sixties.
• Multiculturalism has failed as an institutional practice in Europe, which can be determined by the increase in hate crime cases and racial minority issues.
• Despite the significance of affirmative action in countering racial prejudice, there are concerns that it promotes racial differences.
• There exists a misconception that affirmative action is a women’s agenda.
• Racial prejudice founded on a single person’s actions but taken to be the general state of affairs for the given race is wrong.
• Racism in the workplace adversely impacts workers’ productivity as it affects their aggressiveness.
• It costs nothing to point out racist actions in the workplace.
• The majority of Racism in the world relies on Racism as a means of garnering votes and grabbing power.
• The rate of racial hatred and related crimes is high in Australian universities.
• Students’ diversity can play a significant role in reducing racial crimes and related issues.
• Embracing diversity in the workplace can help reduce incidences of racial intolerance.
• Transgender, bisexual, gay, and lesbian Americans have experienced prejudice from society.
• In the thirties, the Blacks lived in hatred and poverty, which was the cause of death of many innocent lives.
• It was considered strange to show affection to Black Americans in the past.
• Despite the frowning among most citizens in America, racial prejudice is a common practice, especially in the brave home.
• Racial equality is a social barrier that Americans are yet to overcome.
• There are wide geographical and psychological distances between Asians and Blacks in America. Such distances can be attributed to the segregation by the American society government or the white-centric media.

I am dedicated to creating engaging blog posts that provide valuable insights and advice to help students excel in their studies. From study tips to time management strategies, my goal is to empower students to reach their full potential.

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Events, news & press, america’s struggle for racial equality.

Recapturing civil rights leaders’ commitment to ending discrimination

O n June 11, 1963, in the wake of Governor George Wallace’s stand against integration at the University of Alabama, President John F. Kennedy reported to the American people on the state of civil rights in the nation. He called on Congress to pass legislation dismantling the system of segregation and encouraged lawmakers to make a commitment "to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law."

Invoking the equality of all Americans before the law, Kennedy said: "We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and it is as clear as the American Constitution. The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated."

The American people are now beginning a great debate over the use of race and gender preferences by federal, state, and local governments. In 1996, a majority of voters in California, including 29 percent of blacks, approved the California Civil Rights Initiative prohibiting preferential treatment in public employment, education, and contracting. In a series of cases, the Supreme Court and federal courts of appeal have made it clear that the system of preference is built on an exceedingly shaky foundation. These cases--chiefly the Adarand decision of 1995--establish that racial classifications are presumptively unconstitutional and will be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances. In 1998, Congress is likely to consider legislation to end the use of race and gender preferences by the federal government.

As we enter this debate, Kennedy’s stirring words on civil rights are as important as they were in 1963. In the name of overcoming discrimination, our government for the past generation has been treating Americans of different races unequally. This is not the first time that American governments have intentionally discriminated. The institution of slavery and Jim Crow laws both violated the fundamental American tenet that "all men are created equal" and are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." But racial preferences designed to compensate for prior discrimination are also inconsistent with our most deeply cherished principles.

Slavery was the single greatest injustice in American history. The conflict sparked by its existence and by efforts to expand it took 365,000 American lives. A system of ferocious violence that degraded human beings to the status of chattel, American slavery had at its core the belief that blacks were subhuman. It was an institution that systematically and wantonly trampled on the most basic of human relations: Husband was separated from wife, parent was separated from child. Liberty was denied to individuals solely by reason of race.

When this disgraceful chapter in our history came to an end, it left a legacy of racism that has afflicted America up to the present generation. Soon after the Civil War, that legacy found expression in the segregation statutes, also known as Jim Crow laws. Historian C. Vann Woodward describes segregation thus: "That code lent the sanction of law to a social ostracism that extended to churches and schools, to housing and jobs, to eating and drinking. Whether by law or by custom, that ostracism extended to virtually all forms of public transportation, to sports and recreations, to hospitals, orphanages, prisons, and asylums, and ultimately to funeral homes, morgues, and cemeteries."

Woodward continues, "The Jim Crow laws, unlike feudal laws, did not assign the subordinated group a fixed status in society. They were constantly pushing the Negro farther down." Woodward also documents the "total disfranchisement" of black voters in the South through the poll tax and the white primary. He quotes Edgar Gardner Murphy on the attitude of many southern whites that energized the system of segregation during the first half of the 20th century: "Its spirit is that of an all-absorbing autocracy of race, an animus of aggrandizement which makes, in the imagination of the white man, an absolute identification of the stronger race with the being of the state."

A Question of Dignity

The civil-rights movement of the 1950s and the early 1960s arose to combat racist laws, racist institutions, and racist practices wherever they existed. The story of that movement is a glorious chapter in the history of America. Sparked by the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) , the civil rights movement dealt a death blow to the system of segregation with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 soon followed, creating the basis for fully restoring the franchise to black Americans throughout the country.

The moral example of those who stood against the forces of racial injustice played a critical role in reshaping American attitudes toward race. The American people were moved by images of the terrible acts of violence and gross indignities visited on black Americans.

Moreover, the civil-rights movement embodied a fundamental message that touched the soul of the American people. It exemplified an ideal at the core of the American experience from the very beginning of our national life, an ideal that was never fully realized and sometimes tragically perverted, but always acknowledged by Americans.

The ideal of respect for the dignity of the individual was set forth in the Declaration of Independence: "[A]ll men are created equal" and are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." At Independence Hall on the eve of the Civil War, Lincoln spoke of this ideal as "a great principle or idea" in the Declaration of Independence "which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance." This ideal undergirded the civil-rights movement and condemned the contradictions of America’s segregated society.

This ideal has never been more eloquently expressed than by Martin Luther King Jr., who said, the "image of God . . . is universally shared in equal portions by all men. There is no graded scale of essential worth. Every human being has etched in his personality the indelible stamp of the Creator. . . . The worth of an individual does not lie in the measure of his intellect, his racial origin, or his social position. Human worth lies in relatedness to God. Whenever this is recognized, ‘whiteness’ and ‘blackness’ pass away as determinants in a relationship and ‘son’ and ‘brother’ are substituted."

King explicitly linked this religious view of man to the philosophical foundation of the United States. America’s "pillars," King said, "were soundly grounded in the insights of our Judeo-Christian heritage: All men are made in the image of God; all men are brothers; all men are created equal; every man is heir to a legacy of dignity and worth; every man has rights that are neither conferred by nor derived from the state, they are God-given. What a marvelous foundation for any home! What a glorious place to inhabit!"

In light of King’s personal experiences and the contradiction of sanctioning slavery and segregation in a country committed to equality, this is a remarkably optimistic view of the American experience. It is a view that propelled the civil-rights movement to great victories.

An Animating Principle

This understanding of the dignity of the individual found concrete expression in a legal principle that was relentlessly pursued by the early civil-rights movement. If universally adopted, this principle would fulfill the promise of American ideals. It was eloquently stated by the first Justice Harlan in his dissent to the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) . In words that would often be cited by those seeking to overthrow the odious Jim Crow system, Harlan pronounced, "Our Constitution is color blind. . . . The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the Supreme law of the land are involved."

The colorblind principle articulated by Harlan was the touchstone of the American civil-rights movement until the mid-1960s. Emory law professor Andrew Kull, in his admirable history The Color-Blind Constitution , identifies the centrality of the colorblind principle to the movement: "The undeniable fact is that over a period of some 125 years ending only in the late 1960s, the American civil-rights movement first elaborated, then held as its unvarying political objective, a rule of law requiring the color-blind treatment of individuals."

This fact is well illustrated by the example of Thurgood Marshall. In 1947, Marshall, representing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Education Fund, in a brief for a black student denied admission to the University of Oklahoma’s segregated law school, stated the colorblind principle unequivocally: "Classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society. They are contrary to our constitution and laws."

Marshall’s support for the colorblind principle--which he later abandoned--is vividly described by Constance Baker Motley, senior U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York, in an account included in Tinsley Yarbrough’s biography of Justice Harlan. Motley recalled her days working with Marshall at the NAACP: "Marshall had a ‘Bible’ to which he turned during his most depressed moments. . . . Marshall would read aloud passages from Harlan’s amazing dissent. I do not believe we ever filed a major brief in the pre-Brown days in which a portion of that opinion was not quoted. Marshall’s favorite quotation was, ‘Our Constitution is color-blind.’ It became our basic creed."

The principle of colorblind justice ultimately did find clear expression in the law of the United States. By passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress acted decisively against the Jim Crow system, and established a national policy against discrimination based on race and sex. It is the supreme irony of the modern civil-rights movement that this crowning achievement was soon followed by the creation of a system of preferences based first on race and then extended to gender.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an unequivocal statement that Americans should be treated as individuals and not as members of racial and gender groups. Congress rejected the racism of America’s past. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, no American would be subject to discrimination. And there was no question about what discrimination meant. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota--the chief Senate sponsor of the legislation--stated it as clearly as possible: Discrimination was any "distinction in treatment given to different individuals because of their different race."

Was This Enough?

As the Civil Rights Act was being considered, some voices questioned the adequacy of the principle of colorblind justice. The Urban League’s Whitney Young said that "300 years of deprivation" called for "a decade of discrimination in favor of Negro youth." James Farmer, a founder of the Congress of Racial Equality, called for "compensatory preferential treatment." Farmer said "it was impossible" for an "employer to be oblivious to color because we had all grown up in a racist society." But Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, in an encounter with Farmer, summed up the traditional view of the civil-rights movement: "I have a problem with that whole concept. What you’re asking for there is not equal treatment, but special treatment to make up for the unequal treatment of the past. I think that’s outside the American tradition and the country won’t buy it. I don’t feel at all comfortable asking for any special treatment; I just want to be treated like everyone else."

While considering the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress itself debated the issues of racial preferences and proportional representation. The result of that debate was the adoption of Section 703(j) of the Act, which states that nothing in Title VII of the Act "shall be interpreted to require any employer . . . to grant preferential treatment to any individual or group because of the race . . . of such individual or group" in order to maintain a racial balance. Senators Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania and Clifford Case of New Jersey, who steered that section of Title VII through the legislative process, left no doubt about Congress’s intent. "[A]ny deliberate attempt to maintain a racial balance," they said at the time, "whatever such a balance may be, would involve a violation of Title VII because maintaining such a balance would require an employer to hire or refuse to hire on the basis of race. It must be emphasized that discrimination is prohibited to any individual."

For a brief, shining moment, the principle of colorblind justice was recognized as the law of the land. But soon that principle was thrust aside to make way for a system of race-based entitlement. The critical events took place during the Nixon administration, when the so-called Philadelphia Plan was adopted. It became the prototypical program of racial preferences for federal contractors.

In February 1970, the U.S. Department of Labor issued an order that the affirmative-action programs adopted by all government contractors must include "goals and timetables to which the contractor’s good faith efforts must be directed to correct . . . deficiencies" in the "utilization of minority groups." This construct of goals and timetables to ensure the proper utilization of minority groups clearly envisioned a system of proportional representation in which group identity would be a factor--often the decisive factor--in hiring decisions. Embodied in this bureaucratic verbiage was a policy requiring that distinctions in treatment be made on the basis of race.

Discrimination of a most flagrant kind is now practiced at the federal, state, and local levels. A white teacher in Piscataway, New Jersey, is fired solely on account of her race. Asian students are denied admission to state universities to make room for students of other races with much weaker records. There are more than 160 federal laws, regulations, and executive orders explicitly requiring race- and sex-based preferences.

Now, as throughout the history of preferences, the key issue in the debate is how policies of preference can be reconciled with the fundamental American tenet that "all men are created equal" and are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

Evidence of racism can still be found in our country. American society is not yet colorblind. The issue for Americans today is how we can best transcend the divisions of the past. Is it through a policy of consistent nondiscrimination or through a system of preferences?

Racial preferences are frequently justified as a measure to help low-income blacks. But the evidence is compelling that the beneficiaries of preferential policies are overwhelmingly middle-class or wealthy. For the most part, the truly disadvantaged have been unable to participate in the programs that grant preferences. Furthermore, the emphasis on preferences has diverted attention from the task of addressing the root causes of black Americans’ disadvantage. The lagging educational achievement of disadvantaged blacks can be ameliorated not through preferences but through structural reform of the American elementary and secondary education system. Preferences do nothing to help develop the skills necessary for the economic and social advancement of the disadvantaged.

Dressed-Up Discrimination

Preferences must also be judged a moral failure. Although some individuals have benefited significantly from preferences and a case can be made that preferences have enhanced the economic position of the black middle class, these gains have come at a great moral cost. Put simply, preferences discriminate. They deny opportunities to individuals solely because they are members of a nonpreferred race, gender, or ethnic group. The ambitions and aspirations, the hopes and dreams of individual Americans for themselves and for their families are trampled underfoot not for any wrongs those individuals have committed but for the sake of a bureaucratic effort to counterbalance the supposedly pervasive racism of American society. The penalty for the sins of the society at large is imposed on individuals who themselves are guilty only of being born a member of a nonpreferred group. Individual American citizens who would otherwise enjoy jobs and other opportunities are told that they must be denied in order to tilt the scales of racial justice.

Although preferences are presented as a remedial measure, they in fact create a class of innocent victims of government-imposed discrimination. In our system of justice, the burden of a remedy is imposed on those responsible for the specific harm being remedied. In the case of racial preferences, however, this remedial model breaks down. Those who benefit from the remedy need not show that they have in fact suffered any harm, and those who bear the burden of the remedy do so not because of any conduct on their part but purely because of their identity as members of non-preferred groups. Americans of all descriptions are deprived of opportunities under the system of preferences. And some of these victims have themselves struggled to overcome a severely disadvantaged background.

The proponents of preferential policies must acknowledge the injuries done to innocent individuals. They must confront the consequences flowing daily from the system of preferences in awarding contracts, jobs, promotions, and other opportunities. Supporters of the status quo attempt to hide the reality of preferences beneath a facade of "plus factors," "goals and timetables," and other measures that are said merely to "open up access" to opportunities. Behind all these semantic games, individual Americans are denied opportunities by government simply because they are of the wrong color or sex. The names assigned to the policies that deprive them of opportunity are of little moment. What matters is that our government implements a wide range of programs with the purpose of granting favored treatment to some on the basis of their biological characteristics. How can such government-imposed distinctions be reconciled with Martin Luther King’s message that whenever the image of God is recognized as universally present in mankind, " ‘whiteness’ and ‘blackness’ pass away as determinants in a relationship"? The conflict is irreconcilable.

The moral failure of preferences extends beyond the injustice done to individuals who are denied opportunities because they belong to the wrong group. There are other victims of the system of preferences. The supposed beneficiaries are themselves victims.

Preferences attack the dignity of the preferred, and cast a pall of doubt over their competence and worth. Preferences send a message that those in the favored groups are deemed incapable of meeting the standards that others are required to meet. Simply because they are members of a preferred group, individuals are often deprived of the recognition and respect they have earned. The achievements gained through talent and hard work are attributed instead to the operation of the system of preferences. The abilities of the preferred are called into question not only in the eyes of society, but also in the eyes of the preferred themselves. Self-confidence erodes, standards drop, incentives to perform diminish, and pernicious stereotypes are reinforced.

All of this results from treating individuals differently on the basis of race. It is the inevitable consequence of reducing individuals to the status of racial entities. The lesson of our history as Americans is that racial distinctions are inherently cruel. There are no benign distinctions of race. Our history--and perhaps human nature itself--renders that impossible. Although the underlying purpose of preferences was to eliminate the vestiges of racism, the mechanism of redress was fundamentally flawed. Rather than breaking down racial barriers, preferential policies continually remind Americans of racial differences.

Scarring the Soul

Martin Luther King Jr. described the harm done to all Americans by the Jim Crow system: "Segregation scars the soul of both the segregator and the segregated." Similarly, every time our government prefers one individual over another on the basis of race, new scars are created, and the promise of the Declaration of Independence is deferred.

The way forward in American race relations is to embrace the vision of a colorblind legal order that was set forth 100 years ago by Justice Harlan, pursued devotedly by the civil-rights movement, articulated eloquently by President Kennedy, and enshrined in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The way to transcend our racial divisions is to first ensure that we, as a people acting through our government, respect every person as an individual created in the image of God and honor every American as an individual whose color will never be the basis for determining his opportunities.

This principle is consistent with the initial meaning of "affirmative action" in civil-rights law. On March 6, 1961, President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925, establishing the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, and creating a framework for "affirmative steps" designed "to realize more fully the national policy of nondiscrimination within the executive branch of the Government." The executive order also provided that government contracts contain the following provision: "The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color or national origin."

The original concept of affirmative action excluded any notion of preference. Indeed, the concept of affirmative action was explicitly linked with the principle of nondiscrimination. It was to be affirmative action to ensure that individuals were treated "without regard to their race." There is no hint of group entitlement or proportional representation in the executive order. On the contrary, the exclusive focus is on the right of individuals to be treated as individuals. The "affirmative steps" were actions designed to ensure that individuals of all races would have an opportunity to compete on the basis of their individual merit.

William Van Alstyne, a law professor at Duke University, has stated it as well as anyone: "[O]ne gets beyond racism by getting beyond it now: by a complete, resolute, and credible commitment never to tolerate in one’s own life--or in the life or practices of one’s government--the differential treatment of other human beings by race. Indeed, that is the great lesson for government itself to teach: In all we do in life, whatever we do in life, to treat any person less well than another or to favor any more than another for being black or white or brown or red, is wrong. Let that be our fundamental law and we shall have a Constitution universally worth expounding."

The American people have embraced that commitment, and the courts have gone far toward making it our fundamental law. The only remaining question is whether the elected representatives of the people will do their part to rid our legal order of the odious distinctions of race.

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Fact Sheet: U.S. Efforts to Combat Systemic   Racism

“The prevalence, and pervasiveness, of racial discrimination might make the situation look hopeless, but we remain hopeful. Let us expose the racism and racial discrimination endemic to every society, around the globe. Let us press forward, to root out that discrimination and remove the rot from our foundations. And on this day dedicated to ending racial discrimination, let us leave our children a less hateful, more hopeful world.”

—  U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Combating systemic racism requires aggressive action to address structures, policies, and practices that contribute to the wealth gap, to health disparities, and to inequalities in educational access, outcomes, and beyond. Today, on the occasion of the United Nations’ (UN) International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the United States reiterates its determination to address these challenges at home and abroad, and to make clear to the world that nations with genuine devotion to human rights and equality do not conceal their own failings – they confront them honestly, transparently, and with a determination to make things right.

Here is what the administration is doing to address systemic racism:

Advancing Racial Equity in the Federal Government: On Day 1 of this administration, the President issued Executive Order (EO) 13985 which established that the Federal Government should pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all and creating opportunities for the improvement of communities that have been historically underserved.

Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Community: On January 26, President Biden issued a Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. The memorandum orders executive departments and agencies to take all appropriate steps to ensure that official actions, documents, and statements, including those that pertain to the COVID-19 pandemic, do not exhibit or contribute to racism, xenophobia, and intolerance against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Assessing Domestic Violent Extremism: President Biden directed the U.S. government interagency to study the threat of domestic violent extremism in the United States. Earlier this week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the unclassified executive summary of the comprehensive assessment acknowledging that domestic violent extremist motivations include biases against minority populations.

Creating a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer (CDIO) at the State Department: Secretary of State Blinken created the position of a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer (CDIO) at the State Department, in recognition of the crucial role diversity, equity, and inclusion can and should play in U.S. foreign policy. Reporting directly to the Secretary, the CDIO will align and advance Diversity and Inclusion policies across the department, bring transparency to these initiatives, and hold senior leadership accountable on progress.

Incorporating Racial Justice into U.S. Foreign Policy Goals: Addressing systemic racism and strengthening democracy in the United States is a critical part of President Biden’s foreign policy vision. The Secretary of State shall submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees describing initiatives that address racial and ethnic discrimination abroad, to include a list of Department efforts that explicitly focus on addressing racial and ethnic prejudice and discriminations, funding for civil society grants and Embassy programs and initiatives, exchange and leadership programs, and related efforts. This includes State Department programming through the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Supporting Historically Marginalized Populations Around the World: Globally, the United States supports organizations to empower racial and ethnic minority communities, and uphold the dignity of people who are systematically denied their human rights and fundamental freedoms. Programs support locally-led efforts to combat all types of racial and ethnic hatred and violence and facilitate access to justice for victims of racism. Initiatives are intersectional and support individuals who face discrimination on account of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, race or ethnicity, religion, and national origin.

Calling for Action at the UN Human Rights Council: At the UN Human Rights Council, more than 140 nations joined the United States in a statement outlining the continuing scourge of racism and racial discrimination, xenophobia, and other forms of intolerance. This historic cross-regional statement is a call to action for all nations to:

• acknowledge and address the legacy and persistence of systemic racism
• review and revise long-standing practices and policies to ensure all individuals are treated equally
• embed fairness and inclusivity in decision-making processes
• redress inequities in policies that serve as barriers to equal opportunity
• eliminate barriers to political participation

Nominating a U.S. Representative to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination: The United States nominated Professor Gay McDougall to serve on the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a body of 18 independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by its State parties. Her nomination underscores the value that the Biden administration places on the Committee’s work.

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247 Equality Topics & Essay Examples

Looking for exciting equality topics to write about? The issue is hot, controversial, and definitely worth studying!

🔝 Top 10 Gender Equality Essay Topics

• 🏆 Best Essay Examples

🥇 Most Interesting Equality Topics to Write about

🎓 simple & easy equality essay titles.

• 📝 Interesting Titles
• 💡 Controversial Topics

❓ Equality Essay Questions

In your equality essay, you might want to focus on racial, social, or gender inequality in historical perspective or nowadays. Whether you will choose to write an argumentative or persuasive essay, this article will help you. We’ve gathered top race and gender equality title ideas and added excellent equality essay examples to inspire you even more.

• Gender equality as a fundamental human right
• History of women’s empowerment
• Preventing violence against women and girls
• Gender bias in medical sphere
• Reproductive rights of women
• Child marriage in developing countries
• Gender equality in economy: is it possible?
• Gender stereotypes in the workplace
• Women representation in political institution
• Gender quotas in parliaments: do they work?

🏆 Best Equality Essay Examples & Topic

• Equality, Diversity and Inclusive Education The major goal of inclusive learning is to value the diversity of the human community and also ensure that there is equity in the provision of education to all groups of people, such that not […]
• Fairness and Equality in the Modern Business World The reduction in the gender wage gap between men and women in the workplace indicates the progress that society has made in making the world a fairer and equal place.
• Employment Relations: Effects of Unitarism on Inequality In view of this, management teams are evaluating employee loyalty on the basis of the extent to which they have internalized the firm’s corporate vision even if it is at the expense of their personal […]
• Freedom and equality According to Liliuokalani of Hawaii, the conquest contravened the basic rights and freedoms of the natives and their constitution by undermining the power of their local leaders.
• Does Democracy Require Equality of Income or Wealth? While wealth equality as the presence of equivalent opportunities to exert political power appears to be the essential factor in establishing democracy, income equality as the opportunity to build wealth is also a factor.
• Nonhuman Animals in Moral Equality Theories The subject-of-a-life is the basis of human rights; however, according to Regan, animals have this property as well and as such deserve animal rights.
• Missouri Compromise: Economic Equality Among American States These impacts include enhancing economic equality, political balance, unity of the northern and southern states of America, and controlling the spread of slavery in the country. Finally, the Missouri Compromise controlled the spread and prevalence […]
• Gender-Sensitive Education and Equality This is because they are in the best position to determine the level of success that has been achieved, and what could be impeding the achievement of this equality.
• Sociological perspectives of Gender Inequality The events taking place in the modern world and the occurrence of the feminist movements during the past few decades can be used to offer a deeper understanding on the subject of gender inequality and […]
• Gender and Sports: Men and Women Equality Sport is considered to be one of the most appealing but at the same time the most controversial institutions in the world.
• Inequality in Society: Conflict and Functionalism Theories Functionalism theory views inequality as unavoidable and important to the society while conflict theory considers inequality to result from conflict and coercion in the social system.
• Multinational Corporations Managing Diversity & Equality The supposed acceptances of diversity as a good contradict the well-established structural barrier to implementing greater openness to differences in the workplaces.
• Inequality and Development The irritating consumerism of the rich and the shortage of basic needs in low income societies lead to the multiplication of conflicts between the rich and poor.
• The Progress of Gender Equality The key achievements have been the removal of all forms of discrimination against women, the promotion of legal literacy, education, and the general protection of the rights of women.
• Absolute Gender Equality in a Marriage Despite the fact that the principles of gender equality in marriage will clearly affect not only the relationships between a husband and a wife but also the roles of the spouses considerably, it is bound […]
• Gender Equality and Development Despite the progress of the last century on ensuring the equal rights for both genders, there are still issues that have to be addressed by the global society.
• Social Equality and Economic Growth Social equality provides individuals with equal opportunities to contribute to the growth of the economy. Equality also ensures that the potential of the society is fully exploited to enhance the development of the entire community.
• Aspects of Equality for Transgender Athletes The authors of the article claim that transgender athletes deserve equal representation and the right to participate in competitions in the divisions of the gender they identify themselves by referring to social structures and justice.
• “The Struggle for Black Equality: 1954-1992” by Harvard Sitkoff The author discusses the belittling of black people and the preservation of white supremacy, describes how black citizens’ inability to vote escalated into them being assaulted and murdered, and explains how law facilitated racial barriers.
• Deaf Culture and Sign Language: Social Equality in Society Most importantly, the ASL Level 1 course has facilitated an accurate understanding and respect of the Deaf culture as a means of enhancing social equality in diverse societies. Most importantly, ASL Level 1 has been […]
• Gender Equality and Title IX The function of Title IX is to guarantee gender equality in college sports and it has supported the development of female sports.
• Greater equality: the hidden key to better health and higher scores Main arguments of the authors In their article, “Greater equality: the hidden key to better health and higher scores”, Wilkinson and Picket argue that equality in terms of income levels among the population is more […]
• Gender Issues of Equality and Representation in the K-12 Education System This paper examines the gender issues of equality and representation in the K-12 education system and gives out the major findings based on the observed trends from the structured study of literature in the area.
• Relation Between Justice and Inequality The structure of institutions needs to be changed in that everyone can relate hence creating a rift in the judgment delivered between the rich and the poor is unproductive.
• SDGs – Equality Education and Gender Equality The quality of education for girls can affect their employment and their ability to support themselves financially. With a good education, women have a larger range of jobs to choose from and the opportunity to […]
• Gender inequality in Canada According to, although it is certain that men and women have actual differences particularly physically, most of the social indifference perception are not because of the biological connotation but because of the over time cultural […]
• Equality and Diversity in Business Ethics The leader will identify the skills and dexterities of the workers and design the best teams that can deliver the targeted goals.
• Social, Cultural and Gender Inequality From a Global Perspective It is the duty of the tutor to craft a lecture-room environment that serves to enhance meaningful discussions concerning gender. This is due to the fact that students learn best in various ways.
• The Telus Company’s Equality and Diversity Practices In order to be a prominent representative in the framework of equality and inclusion, the corporation admits the importance of ensuring that its staff, at all levels, demonstrates the variety of customers and communities.
• The Philosophy of Equality and Inclusiveness: Key Principles For example, inclusiveness reinforces the understanding of a person with disabilities that one is entitled to the same services as the rest.
• Disability Equality of a Disabled Lone Parent Although the officials were initially reluctant owing to her physical condition and the nature of work she was to perform, they allowed her to try.
• Empowering Gender Equality in the United Arab Emirates Workforce The objective of the paper is to track changes in gender equality policies, especially concerning the equal representation of all women in the country’s workforce.
• Freedom, Equality & Solidarity by Lucy Parsons In the lecture and article ‘The Principles of Anarchism’ she outlines her vision of Anarchy as the answer to the labor question and how powerful governments and companies worked for hand in hand to stifle […]
• Gender Inequality in Workplace Gender is the main reason for inequalities in the workplace; this is because nowadays there is a steady increase in the number of women in workplaces in the world.
• Coretta Scott King: Fighting and Advocating for Equality Coretta was exposed to the social injustices when she was a very young girl where she was forced to face the wrath of a segregated society, that is, the society where the native and the […]
• Hobbes and Locke on the Issue of Equality The concept of equality is significant in the discussion of liberty, property, and the role of government in the lives of people.
• Equality of Opportunity in Society Policies developed by the political class to pursue equality of opportunity distract society from addressing the issues that contribute to the inequalities, depriving people of good life regardless of their social class.
• Equality of Transgender and LGBTQ+ Populations The principles of the struggle for the transgender and LGBTQ+ populations should include respect for the choice and self-identification of a person.
• The Discussion of Concepts of Gender Equality In the article, the author presents such concepts as violence, harm, empowerment, freedom, and universal care from the point of view of capitalism, liberalism, and feminism to reach the point of gender equality.
• How to Have Both Private Property and Equality in a State It is possible to have both private property and equality in a state by developing measurable notions through a qualitative analysis of freedom and equality in their relatable aspect.
• Gender Equality in Children’s Perception Despite the variety of achievements made on the subject in different parts of the world, the general tendency leads society toward accepting the idea of equality between men and women.
• Fairness and Equality in the Modern Labor World The establishment of an equal position between people is one of the most critical forces that will help the organic and stable development of society and the surrounding world.
• Workplace Equality for Minorities Steps must be taken to ensure that labor is appropriately paid and that the current model, in which work performed predominantly by minorities is undervalued, is not perpetuated.
• Panel: Gender Equality and Egalitarian Society There are various views on gender inequality among modern scholars. While some connect gender inequality with the development of material property and the domination of males, others find examples of nations with no signs of gender inequality. Graeber and Wengrow (2021) write that there were no periods in human history when people lived in a […]
• Racial Equality in the Brown v Board of Education Case The Brown v Board of Education of Topeka was one of the events that resulted in a step towards demolishing inequality, being preceded by an unfair ruling.
• Income Equality and Social Policy Advocacy Lag The lag in income equality can be seen from statistical data: the income inequality ratio in the US is nine to one, which is worse than in Portugal, the UK, France, Canada, Germany, and some […]
• The Global Goal of Gender Equality in Healthcare The problem of gender equality is one of the most vital issues which should be adequately addressed in our society. One of the major problems is the gender disparities in the health and social care […]
• The Meaning of Equity: The Struggle for Equality However, there is a significant difference between equality and equity, and in my opinion, the latter approach is much fairer and provides more benefits. Therefore, for me, equity is the idea that both society and […]
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Address on Equality and Rights The same rights enable both a man and a woman to be part of enhancing the growth and development of a nation. The women would acquire their rights by using their penmanship, words, wealth, influence, […]
• Equality of Victims in the Legal System One of the most problematic issues concerning the inefficiencies of the legal system is the relatively low investigation rate of specific murder cases.
• Activists’ Role in African Americans’ Struggle for Equality The civil rights movement became one of the most notable phenomena in the history of the United States because it forever changed the political, legal, and social landscape of the country.
• Women’s Equality Regarding Their Overall Wellness According to Poczatkova and Kribikova, the underrepresentation of women, particularly in the fields of science and research, is reproduced in the outcomes of the findings of studies and the subsequent applicability.
• Title IX: Gender Equality in Education Education provides opportunities for developing the abilities of girls and boys, women and men to participate in the social, economic, and political life of the state and is the basis for the development of a […]
• Gender Equality as Target of Social Work As far as health care is concerned, the primary issue of gender inequality addresses the issue of access to the services and the quality of care provided.
• Cultural Diversity and Social Equality The power of equality is to allow one to express their cultural identity without the fear of being marginalized in society.
• Same-Sex Marriages and Equality Some oppose gay marriage on religious grounds and others- on an individual or group basis, but some tussle against the inequitable portrayal of gay marriage with zeal, such as Senator Dianne Feinstein.
• Enhancing Equality in the Society Since equality is at the heart of human rights, the government should contribute to its growth by lawfully establishing the same rights for every person regardless of their SES, age, race, and other features.
• Nursing Regulations as to Patient Equality I did not know that he was the father of the senior director at the hospital, and the older man was waiting for him. The incident was the subject of discussion in the workplace, and […]
• Martin Luther King Jr. as an Equality Activist At one time, Martin doubted which profession to give preference to medicine or law, everything was decided in favor of the ministry of the church, which influenced the education and literacy of the future leader.
• Naomi Osaka’s Case of Gender Equality in Sports The recent case of retirement by Naomi Osaka is a prime example of how gender roles and racism in sports can affect even the best athletes making sports an important discussion in the context of […]
• The Fighter for Equality: Nelson Mandela In 1941, he moved to Johannesburg, and, along with his work as a lawyer, he entered the University of the Witwatersrand at the Faculty of Law. He organized the Campaign of Disobedience to the Authorities, […]
• How Faith Leaders Are Divided Over Equality Act The Vatican refuses to bless same-sex marriages saying that this is not in accordance with the canons of the Roman Catholic Church since marriage is a union of a man and a woman.
• Modern Society’s Influence on Behavior and Equality Autonomy has enabled women to engage in political and economic fields that were prohibited in the traditional society, translating to equity and equality.
• Creating a Culture of Gender Equality in the Workplace This proposal will consider the existing gender inequality within the field of architecture and propose several changes an architecture firm should undertake to create a culture of gender equality.
• Promoting Equality in the UK Primary School Education System What is the nature of the relationship between inequalities in the UK primary school education system and its administrative structures? The context of this research is the primary school education system in the UK.
• Is Political and Racial Equality Possible in American Society? The study of this issue is important to modern American politics as it directly reflects the problems and opportunities of racial and ethnic minorities. It is also important to strive for justice and equality in […]
• Populism Discourse and Social Equality Regarding the definition, in this paper, populism will be viewed as “an appeal to “the people” against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values of the society”.
• Impairment Pain Management and Disability Equality The purpose of the policy is to examine approaches to pain management to ensure disability equality. The first method is a formalized approach to pain management, assessment, and frequent reassessment/ monitoring of the patient’s state.
• Gender Equality: Definition, Challenges Over the decades, society viewed the female gender as an inferior sect in the community hence the emergent issues of imbalance in the system.
• Abolition vs. Equality in the American Civil War The Resolution was signed by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States who believed the annihilation of slavery and preserving the Union to be the core targets of the war.
• Workplace Relations and Equality Policymaking It is agreeable that many employees have expressed their concerns due to the increasing cases of inequality, discrimination, and abuse in the workplace. The problem of inequality and discrimination at the workplace continues to affect […]
• Women in Islam: Some Rights, No Equality Notwithstanding the principles of equality of men and women in Islamic tradition, women’s low status should be attributed not to the ideals set in the Quran but to the cultural norms of the patriarchal society.
• Female Criminality and Gender Equality The present paper considers this theory by exploring the differences in treatment of females in the United States and Nigeria and assessing their impact on female criminality in the two countries.
• Diversity and Equality at Business Management Level The analysis was carried out in 2010 and revealed that 40% of all company directors in the UK were foreign. When compared to 2005, this represents a 14% increase in the number of overseas directors […]
• Media and ICT Industries Gender Equality Initiatives Therefore, the inability to use media and social networks to build a business is a serious obstacle to the development of women’s entrepreneurship in less developed countries.
• Syrian Conflict and Women Rights: Way to Equality or Another Discrimination The main reason for a low percentage of women in the workforce is Syrian social norms, which stereotypically reflect the role of women in homes serving their husbands and in the private sector.
• Financing Public Education: The Concept of Equality It is also critical to reach impartiality for everyone around the country to have equal opportunities to build their future with the help of education.
• Gender Equality in Finland and the U.S. Legal Situation: discuss the laws regarding general gender equality and the representation of women in positions of political power. Political Situation: analyze the current political landscape in the United States as well as Finland and […]
• Negative Impact of Oil on Wealth Equality and Economy of United Arab Emirates Oil has created wealth inequality in UAE and a shift in world energy focus to green energy will negatively impact the economy of UAE.
• The Women’s Movement and Gender Equality: ERA Opponents of the ERA argue that it is redundant due to the already existing Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
• Gender Equality in Higher Education: The Underrepresentation of Women in Educational Leadership A prime example of gender inequality is the underrepresentation of women in educational leadership, and this problem is going to be considered here in detail.
• Gender Problems, Equality and Perspectives: “Glass Ceiling” Trend The word “ceiling” depicts a kind of barrier for the progress of women and the word “glass” is used as an adjective for ceiling because as glass in invisible, the barrier is also invisible. The […]
• Private Clubs and Gender Equality In the clubs, members of the society get opportunity to pursue their goals and interests collectively and for the benefit of all.
• Affirmative Action Advances Racial Equality by Glenn and Williams The opponents of affirmative action, on the other hand, argue that affirmative action penalizes innocent people simply because they are white, and in most cases, the result is that it leads to people who are […]
• Black Women and the Struggle for Equality The rates in which the black females are incarcerated by males vary based on the level of education that the women have, and also the level of civilization that the Africa women are in.
• Is FGM a Human Rights Issue in the Development of Humanism and Equality? Among the problems faced by developed states that receive migrants from third-world countries, the protection of women’s and girls’ rights in the field of reproductive health stands out.
• Equality in the UN Operations: Chinese Perspective During the Cold, War China felt that the instrument of peacekeeping operations was exploited as a tool by the superpowers to further their interests and not the interests of the nations involved.
• Order, Freedom, Equality, & Justice In order to include all the necessary points into the new constitution it is advisable that the already existing constitutions of the developed countries are consulted and the works of the reputable scholars in the […]
• Welfare and Equality: Richard Titmuss’ Theories According to Titmuss, the realities of 20th century’s living in Western countries were defined by the fact that, unlike what it used to be the case, during course of earlier centuries, the amount of socially […]
• Equality vs. Prejudice in American Society To say more, people do not mind in today’s American society the values of humane attitude toward each other without mentioning the differences in ethnical or cultural diversity.’Melting pot’ of today leaves much to be […]
• Social Factors in the US History: Respect for Human Rights, Racial Equality, and Religious Freedom The very first years of the existence of the country were marked by the initiatives of people to provide as much freedom in all aspects of social life as possible.
• Comparison of the Opportunity Educational Equality Pedestal on the Two Schools Carroll High Schools has been selected to receive an award for the continuing efforts of the Character Education Discipline Committee from the Character Education Partnership.
• Political Economy: An Examination of Equality of Income Distribution In the ACLP database, the criterion variable for the inequality of income distribution is the Gini ratio. The mode is to the right of the mean and median.
• Equality or Priority in the Ideal of Equality Before attempt to answer this question, it is necessary to discuss the definition of the doctrine of egalitarianism, prioritarianism and the purpose of this doctrine.
• In Pursuit of Educational Equality Images of spaciousness and majesty, of endless plains and soaring mountains, fill our folklore and our music and the anthems that our children sing.”This land is your land,” they are told; and, in one of […]
• Differences in the Conception of Equality in Education This ideology has been perceived as the opposite of equality of results but it is not easy to distinguish between results and opportunities.
• Equality of Opportunity and Social Justice: Affirmative Action If this is the situation in advanced nations of the world, the plight in the newly emerging states in Africa, Asia, and Latin America can easily be imagined as to how difficult would it be […]
• Women in Developing Countries: Globalization, Liberalization, and Gender Equality Owing to issues of gender, the voices of women in developing countries are never heard when it comes to the creation of trade agreements and policies or in their negotiations.
• Gender Equality Question: “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare For the past few centuries, the rise of various movements have marked a certain change in the ideas and philosophies of man regarding the true nature of his existence, the pronounced inequalities of not only […]
• Equality Within the Workforce Issues One of the most profound social issues within the realm of employment has to be that of equality within the workforce.
• Equality: The Use of TV to Develop Our Gender Roles In this sense, when it is the men who predominantly work outside of the home, they will usually see the home as a place of leisure and so use the TV as a source of […]
• Feminism and Support of Gender Equality Nowadays, it involves advocacy and a set of activities aimed to protect the rights of a plethora of discriminated groups, including LGBT community members and racial minorities.
• Gender Equality in Sweden and America The parental leave is extended to fathers, and the government strives to maintain a fair gender proportion in the top positions in public agencies.
• Criminology. Female Incarceration and Equality The power dynamics between the two genders and the observable differences in male and female behavior shape their crime patterns, avenues into the justice system, and responses to incarceration.
• Equality: Benefits of Showing Real Differences The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of equality to explain why people should strive to reveal and show that there are real human differences instead of surmising that they exist.
• The Enlightenment: Giving Start to Equality The ideas inherent to the philosophy of the Enlightenment changed the course of history and gave rise to the French Revolution and the start of the Constitution of the United States, human rights, and the […]
• Appiah’s Ideas of Racism, Equality, and Justice The existence of visible differences in people’s appearances created the basis for the distribution of populations into groups depending on the color of their skin and some other features.
• J. S. Murray’s “On the Equality of the Sexes” It is possible to say that Murray’s ideas presented in On the Equality of the Sexes are ahead of her time.
• Chimamanda Adichie: The Issue of Equality and Tolerance After centuries of discrimination and alienation between the communities of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, after hundreds of years of wars based on religion and nationality, modern society has slowly started coming to senses and […]
• Egalitarianism and Social Equality in Cohen’s View With regards to the second part of the question, an egalitarian ethos is not needed to achieve justice, because the existence of an egalitarian ethos is not a critical ingredient in creating equality within the […]
• Empathy, Equality and Justice as Reflective Values Related to the principle of empathy is the notion of equality, which is extremely important as an addition to the ability to empathize.
• Social and Gender Equality Ideals and Theories According to Friedrich, there is no need of elevating the selfish desires of the human race in the pretext of democracy or hot pursuit for gender equality. However, the equality of outcome tends to be […]
• Gender Equality Issues in the Workplace Environment Hence, the gathering of information to validate the allegations is central to the resolution of the gender issue in the case study.
• Gender Equality: Plan to Address the Issue The vice president of administration and finance should use a powerful plan to address the issues affecting the institution. To begin with, I will use a powerful plan to address the issues affecting different female […]
• Chapters 1-2 of “Liberty, Equality, Power” by Murrin et al. The voyage resulted in Pope’s decree of the division of all non-Christian lands between Portugal and Spain, dying out of the local population of Carribean and Bahama Islands and replacing it with black slaves from […]
• Workplace Gender Equality and Discrimination Laws Gender equality in the workplace is also important to achieve competitive benefits, as well as a complex and competitive worldwide economy.
• Chapter 3 of “Liberty, Equality, Power” by Murrin et al. In the subsequent part of the chapter, the author illustrates the events of Indians’ settlement. The author claims that mercantilism ideals became the prevention of ethnic diversity support.
• Gender Equality in the Laing O’Rourke Company The construction industry in the UK has been in a steady decline for from 2011 to 2016, with its fall culminating in autumn, when Carillion, one of the largest construction company in the region, disintegrated.
• Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality Concepts According to Georgellis and Sankae, the Theory of Gender Role emerged out of the consistent work of different psychologists who were interested in explaining the differences between men and women from a socio-economic angle.
• Male Nurses and Gender Equality in the Workplace The research will go further to examine how the concept of gender equality in the nursing working environment can address the problem of the nursing shortage.

📝 Interesting Gender Equality Title Ideas

• Equality and Diversity in the United Arab Emirates The principles of equality and diversity are promoted in many modern organizations, and it is important to evaluate specific competing drivers that contribute to incorporating diversity into the strategy of the UAE-based company and discuss […]
• Democracy and Oligarchy: the Meaning of Equality Aristotle’s meaning of equality is a form of government that is democratically rooted and not aligned to the issue of state and class.
• Equality Struggle of American Minority Groups The Chinese, Hmong, and the Japanese came to the US to provide labor in places such as gold mines and rail construction among others while the rest of the Asian-Americans came as slaves.
• Gender Equality and Its Development Another important indication of the progress is the creation of UN Women, which addressed the known shortcomings of the global women’s rights movements, such as barriers to funding and lack of centralized effort aimed at […]
• Equality, Diversity and Human Rights in Healthcare Equity can be achieved in a health system that acknowledges the diversity of the population respecting the expectations and needs of the patients, the staff and the services as a whole.
• The Question of Gender Equality: Scott vs. Terrall The paper also answers the question of gender equality, in terms of the standing of women in scientific society, and explains why the arguments of both authors are valid and provide a useful insight into […]
• Educational Equality for All Students In spite of the gravity of multiculturalism in the American society, the teachers and students tend to misinterpret the concept of the intercultural environment by often regarding representatives of various ethnicities as “monocultural”.
• UAE Employee Equality in Sick Leave Provision The actual laws and regulations concerning the provision of sick leaves to the employees in the UAE will be compared to the evidential data of the realities in the modern workplaces.
• Gender and Racial Equality at the Workplace In this light, this paper seeks to identify the prevailing obstacles to the full attainment of racial and gender equality in the workplace setting.
• The Theme of People’ Equality in the United States The subject of equality of all people in the United States is stated in the American Declaration of Independence which declares that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with the […]
• LULAC: Efforts to Promote Racial Equality However, even after the official acceptance of Hispanic people as citizens with the full access to the civil rights and liberties, LULAC is still essential for the promotion of racial equality.
• Equality and Diversity: Benefits in the Workplace It is essential to understand the importance of diversity and equality in the workplace because the world is becoming more diverse and many organisations are learning to manage employees from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
• Equality and Diversity in Business Environment The employees will also present adequate competencies in order to improve the level of performance. Employees should use different approaches and ideas in order to promote the concept of diversity.
• What Is the Point of Equality Theory? The antagonism that seems to crop up from the two interpretations gives rise to the concept of egalitarianism that seeks to diminish the differences that arise from the understanding of liberty and equality.
• American Democracy and Equality Criticism However, the absence of even the smallest traces of ‘equality’ in America can be confirmed not only within the context of what accounts for the living standards, on the part of the country’s rich and […]
• Developing a Culture of Gender Equality by Awadhi The author is one of the modern and educated women in the UAE, which provides evidence of her ability to develop an article describing the state of women in the country.
• Rationalizing Equality in the USA The effects of power abuse still in the minds of the federalists and the antifederalists, both groups had a hard time to come into terms with the intended ratification and implementation of the United States […]
• Equity and Equality of Resources by R. Dworkin As a matter of fact, resolution for this problem should be measures adopted to promote and empower individuals in the society, who are the main beneficiaries of equality in resource sharing.
• Abu Dhabi Health Services Co: Equality & Diversity This will be a sign that the firm appreciates the diversity that exists at the firm and that it is keen on protecting the interests of all its employees.
• Media Influence on Gender and Equality In the recent past, the media have been condemned for compromising on the intention of realizing gender equality. With respect to the above case, the theory supports any decision or act that will result in […]
• Toleration in T. Nagel’s “Equality and Partiality” He argues that the state has the right to enforce only those rules that are based on the values accepted by all of the citizens. Nagel shows that the government should show respect to all […]
• US Education: Goals, Methods, and Equality Issues Despite the fact that nowadays, in the 21st century, honoring diversity has become an almost a common tradition, recognizing the need for diversity in education is still a controversial issue in the sphere of education.
• The Equality Ohio Interest Group The group has been active in politics as government policies affect the existence and the rights of the group. The influence that the Equality Ohio community group holds in Ohio’s politics is significant.
• Gender Equality: Women Leadership in Financial Sector The primary purpose of the study is to assess the effectiveness of various GE tools in the context of the financial sector in the US.
• Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment by Gemechu Ogato The article “The Quest for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in the least Developed Countries” presents a macro work. The ideas presented in this article will guide more societies and governments to identify better policies […]
• Men and Women Equality in the African Diaspora Although the historic and social events and changes in the USA typical for the period of the 1960s-1980s contribute to the stating the ideals of civil rights and gender and racial equality, black women in […]
• Equality and Globalization: Changing Gender Expectations The 21st century has experienced globalization, which is the increase in the integration of nations. Globalization has changed the gender expectations that were traditionally held by members of society.
• Gender Equality and Globalization’ Issues Since the world policies adopt a new progressive direction, the idea of gender equality enters the category of the ultimate Millennium development goals.
• US Progress in Freedom, Equality and Power Since Civil War When it comes to the pursuit of freedom and ideals of democracy, progress since the Civil War can be seen in the establishment of a sufficiently capable Federal government, efficient judiciary and presidency systems with […]
• Equality in the American System of Education According to Andrew Carnegie, the problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth in such a manner that would lead people to attach to each other as a family and live in harmony.
• Social Equity and Equality Concept Comparison In his view, American society has never been equal; hence application of equality in the distribution of important resources is impossible, meaning public administrators must undertake the role of studying the society to comprehend the […]
• Equality’ and Diversity Sociological Issues This plan ensures equity and equality in terms of access to healthcare for the American citizenry. Indeed, Daley and Feit confirm that healthcare professionals have the duty to offer services of equal quality to people, […]
• The US Federal Government Role in the Equality This essay seeks to highlight the major hits and misses in the role played by the three branches of the U.S.federal government in the struggle for black equality.
• Racial Equality Should Not Be Difficult The question of racism and segregation has been bothering the American society and the society of the whole world for generations.
• The Struggle for Gender Equality Before going any further it is crucial to emphasize the pitfalls when it comes to asserting the rights of women when it comes to the need for similar treatment in comparison to men.
• Why Do Conservatives Disagree on the Topic of Marriage Equality? They are of the opinion that legalizing homosexuality would weaken society values that are critical to the community’s existence because the basic units of a society are the traditional man, woman, and children living together […]
• Mary Wollstonecraft’s Achievements in Struggles for Gender Equality First wave feminists advocated for women to be granted the right to vote in the U.S. Their persistent pressure made the U.S.government to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment of 1920, which granted women the right to […]
• The Equality Act 2010 and Individual Employment Rights Since this study focuses on the case of Ladele and McFarlane with reference to the principle of conscientious, religious objection to same-sex relationships, we shall only look at elements of the Act that deal with […]
• Gender Equality: Male Dominance The simple reason is that gender inequality exists in affluent societies wherein women are free to do what they want, have access to education, and have the capacity to create wealth.
• Inequality of Development of Saudi Arabia Given the significance of oil in the country’s economic growth, the government channels most of its funds towards the development of the oil industry.

💡 Controversial Gender Equality Essay Topics

• Inequity Issue in the Workplace
• How Can the Objective of Equality at Work be Promoted through Recruitment and Selection?
• Were the Goals of Hampton/Tuskegee Consistent with the Democratic Ideals of self-Determination and Equality?
• “Savage Inequality” a Book by Jonathan Kozol
• “8 Is Not Hate: The Meaning of a Proposition” and “Prop 8 Hurt My Family—Ask Me How; Marriage Equality USA”
• Equality to All? Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto”
• American Socioeconomic Equality
• Is It Possible for Managers to Reduce Inequality in Business Organizations?
• Gender inequality in Algeria
• Tunisia’s Gender Equality
• How harness all the potentiality among the people to ensure there is equality
• The Impact of Higher Education Expansion on Income Inequality in China
• Color Blindness and Equality
• Public Policy and Social Inequality
• Inequality in U.S Healthcare: The Americare Insurance System
• Building Workplace Equality
• Affirmative Action: Achieving Race Equality in School Admissions
• Ensure equality of representation
• Income Inequality in Marxism, Structuralism, Neoliberalism, and Dependency Theory
• Religious Equality in America
• What Is ‘Liberal Representative Democracy’ and Does the Model Provide an Appropriate Combination of Freedom and Equality?
• Full Frontal Feminism – What is Still Preventing Women from Achieving Equality?
• Media Patterns and Social Inequality
• Discrimination and Fight for Equality
• The Issue of Stereotyping in the US
• There Will Never Be Equality in the World; There Will Always Be Very Rich and Very Poor People
• Equality of Opportunity and Condition Concepts
• Social Capital and Health Inequality
• Managing Diversity and Equality
• Dimensions to Political Thinking: Human Equality, Power, and Order
• The Influence on Health of Economic Inequality
• Scholars Comment on Gender Equality
• The Problem of Social and Economic Inequality in Modern Society
• Obtaining Objective Truth in Regards to Martin Luther King’s Role in the Fight for Equality in the United States
• Capitalism and World Inequality
• Education in Australia as a Tool of Promoting Equality of Opportunity
• Inequality of Women in China
• The Problem of the Racial Inequality in US
• Racial Inequality in America in 1998
• Citizens’ Equality in the United States
• The Race Equality Concept
• Anti-same-sex Marriage Laws and Amendments Violate the Constitutional Guarantees of Equality for all Citizens of the United States
• Free Exercise Clause: Freedom and Equality
• American Africans Action in the Struggle for Equality
• Chaucer and Sophocles Views on Gender Equality
• Liberty, Equality and Power
• The Fight for Equality in Martin Luther King’s Life and Writings
• African American Women and the Struggle for Racial Equality
• Marriage Equality: Same-Sex Marriage
• Gender Equality in the United States, China and Egypt
• Equality of Men and Women
• Are Women Important in Gulf Politics? What are the Main Barriers to Gender Equality?
• Are Economic Liberalization and Equality Compatible?
• Are Robots the Solution to Equality in the Job Interview Process?
• Can Certified Tea Value Chains Deliver Gender Equality in Tanzania?
• Can Guaranteed Tax Base Formulas Achieve Spending Equality?
• Can Liberty and Equality Be Reconciled in Political Theory?
• Can Recruitment and Selection Methods Be Chosen To Promote Equality at Work?
• Does Equal Opportunity Bring Men and Women Closer to Wealth Equality?
• Does the Media Hinder the Cause for Gender Equality?
• Does School Tracking Affect Equality of Opportunity?
• How Elvis Presley Brought Racial Equality?
• How Gender Equality Has Been Bridged in Sports in American Colleges?
• How Does Inclusive Practice Promotes Equality and Supports Diversity?
• How Mirror and Window Books Can Teach Children Equality?
• Why Is Gender Equality Ruining Everyone’s Happiness?
• Why the Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes?
• Why Does Tocqueville Believes That Equality Leads to a Love of Centralized Authority?
• Why Cultural Ideology Constraints Fairness and Equality?
• What Has Limited the Impact of UK Disability Equality Law on Social Justice?
• Why Didn’t the Reconstruction Bring Justice and Equality to Freed Blacks?
• Why Embracing Gender Distinctions Can Create Equality?
• Why Freedom and Equality Is an Artificial Creation?
• Why Have Some Feminists Criticised the Idea of Gender Equality?
• Why Organizations Are Struggling for Achieve Equality and Manage Diversity?
• How To Transform Quatic Agricultural Systems Towards Gender Equality?
• What Are the Two Political Ideals of Freedom and Equality Claimed by Long and Roosevelt?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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America's Struggle to Overcome Racial Inequities

Americans have yet to address structurally systemic racism that has historically preserved inequities, experts say.

America’s Struggle With Racial Inequity

Stephen Maturen | Getty Images

Protesters march on Hiawatha Avenue while decrying the killing of George Floyd on May 26, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In the spring of 2020, as the novel coronavirus pandemic swept into the United States from Europe and Asia, a disturbing pattern emerged: African Americans were twice as likely to become infected with the virus, and die from COVID-19, than whites -- evidence, experts say, of longstanding racial, economic and health disparities, hidden in plain sight.

Months later, as the pandemic death count spiraled, George Floyd died face-down on a Minneapolis street, a white police officer pressing his knee on the Black man's neck. A bystander's video of the killing ignited fierce protests nationwide, demanding justice for Floyd and spurring an overdue reckoning on race.

Yet in January, a mob of far-right extremists, white supremacists and backers of former President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington in a deadly riot, bent on overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election, by violence if necessary. Some in the mob sported MAGA gear; others wore neo-Nazi paraphernalia and waved Confederate flags.

If the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama was to have ushered in a unified, "post-racial America," then events of the past 13 months confirm that, when it comes to race, the U.S. is still a house divided against itself. Some 156 years after the Confederate Army surrendered to Union forces at Appomattox to end the Civil War, a nation that stands as a global beacon of freedom and liberty is unable to atone for its "original sin" of slavery.

Views about racial inequities are shown in the 2021 Best Countries report and rankings , an annual survey on global perceptions of countries. Of the 78 countries evaluated, the U.S. is seen as among the 10 worst countries for racial equality .

10 Worst Countries for Racial Equality

Additionally, while the vast majority of U.S. survey respondents say diversity is important for society, less than 48% of Americans agreed with the statement, "My country treats everyone equally," a lower proportion than the 54% of the 17,000 global respondents who agreed with the statement.

Since March 1877, when Congress approved The Great Compromise -- a political deal to resolve a disputed election that awarded Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency, removed federal troops from the South and gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan -- the United States has been locked in a near-perpetual cycle of racial advancement and white backlash, experts say.

The African American civil rights movement in the South, for example, was often met with violence, including the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Pushing back on Supreme Court rulings banning segregation in housing, education and public facilities, whites in some communities closed pools, shut down schools and fled to the suburbs. After Black voters in Georgia and elsewhere turned out in large numbers to help defeat Trump in the 2020 election, more than a dozen Republican-controlled state legislatures drafted laws stiffening voting requirements.

A central reason for the backlash, experts say, lies in the country's unwillingness to fully confront its enslavement of Black Americans, acknowledge that the "peculiar institution" helped build its wealth or dismantle white supremacy, a cornerstone of its social order.

"America is a fundamentally racist society and it is an indelible part of this country," says Kyle T. Mays, assistant professor in African American Studies and American Indian Studies at the University of California-Los Angeles. "From prison rates to segregation to wealth disparities to educational inequality, the numbers show that (people of color) continue to suffer disproportionately across most social metrics," with racism at the root.

Jamila Taylor, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a left-leaning Washington think tank, agrees that "racial bias both in overt and covert forms, is so pervasive in this country" and has helped retard the growth of communities of color. Despite recent attention to the problem, she says, "We are continuously met with opportunities to dismantle it, yet continue to fall short."

Others, however, insist the current moment of crises -- a pandemic revealing vast inequality, ongoing demands for racial justice and the Trump-fueled rise of white nationalism -- has overshadowed more than a century of drastic cultural changes when it comes to race. They say combatants on either side of the Civil War could not have imagined a Black man in the White House, let alone doctors, lawyers or movie stars of color.

"Moments for change are always present in the U.S. when it comes to racism and the need for racial justice," says Taylor, who specializes in health care policy at TCF. "Have we ever had a period of time that didn't glaringly call on us to address our racial problems once and for all? I think not."

Pippa Norris, a comparative political scientist and professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, says there is "considerable evidence that America is becoming far more tolerant today than it was, say, in the 1950s." Segregated schools and bans on interracial marriage have vanished, she says, and an emerging generation of young white people are locking arms with African Americans, standing against racial injustice.

"The younger generation are far more liberal, partly because, of course, they live in diversity," says Norris, an adviser on election integrity and co-author of the book, " Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian-Populism ." Having grown up with gay marriage and a black president, she says, "The under-20-year-olds, themselves, are almost in minority, in terms of the distribution of population. Over time, as one generation dies out and another generation expands, you can see a rise of racial tolerance."

Civil Rights Images Echo Floyd Protests

Progress, Yet Critical Gaps Remain

Few would disagree that the U.S. has seen fundamental change since April 9, 1865, when Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee grudgingly signed the terms of surrender to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox. Politically and culturally, African Americans have made profound advances in a country that once saw them as chattel.

Black voters have become a powerful political bloc that helped Obama serve two terms and propelled President Joe Biden, a one-time longshot, into the Oval Office with Vice President Kamala Harris. King, the civil rights icon, has been memorialized with a federal holiday and a memorial in Washington, near those dedicated to Lincoln and Jefferson. In 2019, 4.2 million people visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, and Vice President Kamala Harris -- the first woman of color to occupy the office -- is a graduate of Howard University, an historically Black higher-ed institution, and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, an African American sorority that dates to the early 1900s.

Nevertheless, "We have to be careful not to equate the success of individual people of color with the elimination of structural barriers," says Jessica Fulton, vice president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a nonprofit that analyzes race and economic policy.

While representation is important, "it isn't an indicator the structural barriers have been eliminated" or that Black people have achieved equality, Fulton says. "They are more likely an indicator that these specific people of color have had the opportunity to achieve in spite of those barriers."

Indeed, there have been persistent, trans-generational gaps between African Americans and whites in a host of important categories, from health to wealth.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Blacks ages 18 to 49 are twice as likely than whites to die from heart disease, and are more likely than whites to be diagnosed with chronic afflictions like hypertension and diabetes. Black men and women are jailed at more than triple the rate of whites, and nearly half of all inmates awaiting execution are Black.

The economics of race aren't much better: The percentage of Black people living in poverty is more than twice that of whites and Black unemployment is about double that of whites. A 2019 Federal Reserve study found that, on average, a white household has eight times the wealth of a Black one. That gap, according to the report, has held steady since 2016.

"If by 'progress' we mean that the du jure forms of Jim Crow segregation are over — and that is debatable — then yes, race relations have progressed," says Mays, the UCLA professor. Yet from prison rates to segregation to wealth disparities to educational inequality, the numbers show that (African Americans) continue to suffer disproportionately across most social metrics."

Jahi Chikwendiu | Washington Post | Getty Images

Crowds gather to listen to President Barack Obama during the dedication of the grand opening of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture on Sept. 24, 2016, in Washington, D.C.

Backlash Against Progress

While many point to the ballot box as a solution, "Georgia just passed a voting law in order to largely suppress African American voting," Mays says. Coming just after Black voters in Georgia sent Raphael Warnock, a Black man, to the U.S. Senate for the first time in its history, experts say, the new restrictions dovetail with the Jan. 6 attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election -- evidence that the forces of racial resentment are pushing back.

In a Washington Post essay published on April 6, political scientist Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago wrote that a study he conducted of those arrested in the riot indicated that resentment -- whites' fear they were losing status to minorities -- was a key factor.

"Counties with the most significant declines in the non-Hispanic white population are the most likely to produce insurrectionists who now face charges," Pape wrote. "For example, in Texas the majority of the state's alleged insurrectionists — 20 of 36 — live in six quickly diversifying blue counties such as Dallas and Harris (Houston)... In fact, all 36 of Texas's rioters come from just 17 counties, each of which lost white population over the past five years."

History shows that "there has always been a series of far-right extremist movements responding to new waves of immigration to the United States or to movements for civil rights by minority groups," Pape told The New York Times . "You see a common pattern in the Capitol insurrectionists. They are mainly middle-class to upper-middle-class whites who are worried that, as social changes occur around them, they will see a decline in their status in the future."

Norris, the Harvard professor, agrees. Even though their socioeconomic status is largely unchanged, "some older whites feel as though they're doing worse off. In practice, levels of unemployment and income are not that much worse off. And it's not simply that they're being told that they're worse off. You could argue that (they are threatened by) growing racial tolerance amongst the young … that they can no longer have the status they had."

Though she believes racial progress will probably continue, if haltingly, Norris says she is worried that racial resentment among whites is fueling the rise of right-wing authoritarianism in the U.S., with the Republican Party as its vehicle.

"Because they've become more extreme, they've moved from what you can turn a conservative party" in favor of free markets and fiscal responsibility "to something far more authoritarian in their values towards outsiders -- those who they think are not quite American for a variety of reasons."

Megan Varner | Getty Images

Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts speaks with media as demonstrators hold a sit-in inside of the Georgia capitol building in opposition of House Bill 531 on March 8, 2021 in Atlanta.

And that is a huge impediment to racial progress. Despite a history of bigoted public statements, including coded and overt appeals to whites in both the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, former President Trump collected the second-highest number of votes of any presidential candidate in United States history. Biden, his successor, is the only candidate to win more.

"What's changed, I think, is that under Trump we saw racism become much more explicit" in "dog-whistle" political appeals, she says. "The traditional white rural America (ambiguity) on things like Charlottesville was only kind of the tip of the iceberg. There are many other kinds of signals that are being sent out. And that's unfortunate for the mainstream within the Republican Party, by and large."

Taylor says "it is possible" for the U.S. to end the two-steps-forward, one-step-back approach to ending racism, "but it will take systemic change. There needs to be an acknowledgement of how racism pervades every American institution: it is ingrained within socio-political systems, housing, health care, the economy, and the list goes on."

Race "is a social construct that was created for the sole purpose of subjugating entire groups of people based on skin color," Taylor adds. "This social construct was institutionalized and has been able to thrive for centuries. We can't expect the solutions needed to dismantle racism to be implemented and take effect overnight."

And it's not as simple as it sounds, she says.

"This will take time, as well as the political will and right actors to be in place," Taylor says.

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Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care; Smedley BD, Stith AY, Nelson AR, editors. Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2003.

Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care.

• Hardcopy Version at National Academies Press

RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISPARITIES IN HEALTH CARE: AN ETHICAL ANALYSIS OF WHEN AND HOW THEY MATTER

Madison Powers and Ruth Faden

The Kennedy Institute of Ethics

Georgetown University

• Introduction

Recent health services research literature has called attention to the existence of a variety of disparities in the health services received by racial and ethnic minorities. As well, racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes from various health services, including screening, diagnosis, and treatment for specific diseases or medical conditions have also been noted. Such findings provide the impetus for the consideration of two primary moral questions in this paper. First, when do ethnic and racial disparities in the receipt of health services matter morally? Second, when do racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes among patient groups matter morally?

Our approach in answering these questions takes the form of two theses. Our first thesis, the neutrality thesis , is that disparities in health outcomes among patient groups with presumptively similar medical conditions should trigger moral scrutiny. Our second thesis, the anti-discrimination thesis, is that disparities in receipt of health care or adverse health outcomes among racial, ethnic or other disadvantaged patient groups should trigger heightened moral scrutiny. The theses are presented as lenses through which the morally salient features of health services can be viewed. Most theories of justice can accept some version of both the neutrality thesis and the anti-discrimination thesis. However, as we shall see, these theories differ in the nature and strength of their moral conclusions and in the reasoning they employ in reaching those conclusions.

The bulk of this paper will focus on the foundations of the theses, their relation to competing accounts of justice, and the considerations relevant to their moral analysis. In Section II, we articulate the moral foundations for the neutrality and anti-discrimination theses, and in Section III, we examine some potentially morally relevant considerations that inform the conclusions from the perspectives of alternative theoretical frameworks. Finally, in Section IV, we consider the moral implications of these findings for physicians and other health care providers.

The preliminary task, however, is to clarify several conceptual issues lurking in the formulation of the theses. Although the theses overlap in certain important respects, it is even more important to be clear about how they differ.

Differences Between the Neutrality Thesis and the Anti-Discrimination Thesis

The first conceptual distinction has to do with who is covered under the thesis. The neutrality thesis covers disparities in health outcomes among any patient groups with presumptively similar medical conditions and prognoses. By contrast, the anti-discrimination thesis refers specifically to a subset of what falls under the neutrality thesis–the special case in which the outcome disparities involve racial, ethnic or other disadvantaged patient groups.

The second conceptual distinction has to do with what is covered. The neutrality thesis covers only disparities in health outcomes. But the anti-discrimination thesis, which specifies that the disparity must occur in a disadvantaged social group, means that disparities in the health care services people receive, and not just the outcomes they experience, also matter.

The neutrality thesis is thus intended to cover any instance in which it is established that there are differences in outcomes among patient groups that are in relevant respects otherwise medically similar. If it was determined, for example, that white men with colon cancer had poorer survival rates than African- American men with colon cancer, then the neutrality thesis should trigger the same moral scrutiny as if the situation was reversed. In addition, this claim would hold even if it was clear that there were no differences in the medical services the two groups received. However, what if it was determined that white men were less likely than African- American men to have screening colonoscopies after age 50? As long as this disparity did not result in different medical outcomes, there are no moral implications under the neutrality thesis.

In contrast, the anti-discrimination thesis assumes that disparities in both health services received and disparities in health outcomes are independent and distinct reasons for moral concern when the disparities disfavor racial and ethnic groups. These groups are “morally suspect categories,” understood here as analogous to legally suspect categories in equal protection law. Under the anti-discrimination thesis, either type of disparity-- alone or in combination is treated as morally problematic as long as the disparity disfavors a morally suspect group. This is markedly different from the neutrality thesis, in which disparities in utilization are only problematic if they have a disparate impact on health outcomes.

Underlying the neutrality thesis is the implicit assumption that the moral value of medical interventions is generally instrumental. In other words, whether it is good or bad to receive or fail to receive-- a medical intervention depends on the impact each option would have on individual health and well-being. . In the case of racial and ethnic minorities, however, a different moral value is at stake. The very fact that a minority population might receive fewer services believed to be beneficial suggests the potential for morally culpable discrimination. This is a significant moral concern in its own right, regardless of the medical consequences. Under the anti-discrimination thesis, disparities of either sort trigger an additional or heightened level of moral scrutiny beyond that warranted by health outcomes disparities generally. i

• Moral Foundations for the Two Theses

Thus far, we have merely articulated some of the implications of and analytic differences between the two theses and the implications of the differing forms of moral judgment that can flow from the use of either moral lens. In this section, we offer a philosophical defense of the two theses and link them to the more general theoretical foundations on which they rest.

A principle that has come to be known as the formal principle of equality is often the starting point for discussions as to when some sort of disparity or inequality in the way persons are treated (in a more general sense than meant in health care contexts) is morally problematic. It is a minimal conception of equality attributed to Aristotle, who argued that persons ought to be treated equally unless they differ in virtue of some morally relevant attributes. It is, of course, critical to determine in any particular context just which attributes are morally relevant and which are not. Often these determinations are matters of disagreement and controversy that can be traced to significant differences in rival theories of justice. The degree of agreement across theories of justice on the matters under discussion in this paper is, therefore, surprising.

Libertarian Theories

Consider first a type of theory of justice many would think least likely to agree with either the neutrality thesis or the anti-discrimination thesis. The libertarian theorist rejects any pattern of distribution as the proper aim of justice, arguing instead that whatever pattern of distribution emerges from un-coerced contracts and agreements is morally justified (Nozick, 1974). Moreover, coercive attempts by the state to enforce a preferred pattern of distribution are themselves viewed as unjust. To the libertarian, inequalities are counted as merely unfortunate and not unjust, unless they are the product of some intentional harm or injury.

Initially, one might think that the libertarian position leaves little room for objecting to disparities in health outcomes among patient groups, whether defined along racial lines or otherwise, or to disparities in the receipt of health services among racial and ethnic groups. As long as patient preferences are not overridden and no harm to those patients was intended, no injustice or other moral failing would obtain. Indeed, it seems highly unlikely that the libertarian could accept the neutrality thesis, failing to see any basis for demanding moral scrutiny merely because some patient groups fare less well than other patient groups.

The libertarian conclusion may well be different, however, when, as contemplated by the anti-discrimination thesis, the patient groups involve morally suspect categories. Some conceptual room is left open for endorsement of the anti-discrimination thesis, and that room is a consequence of the limited domain of moral judgment for which the libertarian theory is meant to apply. The libertarian view is primarily a theory of societal obligation, or what society collectively owes its members, and not a comprehensive moral doctrine spelling out the full range of individual or other non-governmental moral obligations. Libertarians often assert that particular individuals have duties of mutual aid, even fairly stringent ones, even though state coercion to enforce them would be unjust (Engelhardt, 1996), as do certain non-governmental institutions and professional bodies that assume certain social functions as part of their self-defined moral missions. Thus, even in the libertarian view, the failure of individuals and institutions to offer health services to all racial groups on an equal basis can be a significant basis for moral condemnation.

A point of particular significance for this discussion is that nothing in the libertarian view necessarily excludes the existence of parallel moral obligations that are rolespecific, such as those ordinarily obtaining between physician and patient. Such special obligations are often referred to as agent-relative obligations. Some libertarians have argued that because of the existence of these agent-relative obligations, which in their view form the core of our moral requirements, coercive state action is morally condemnable. Such interference is said to be morally condemnable insofar as it may interfere with an individual's most basic agent-relative moral duties (Mack, 1991). The libertarian, therefore, may limit what government may do to enforce cer tain individual moral obligations, but it does not purport to be a comprehensive moral doctrine that effaces those individual obligations.

The upshot is that the libertarian view, even in its strictest form, need not reject a thesis asserting that disparities involving racial and ethnic minorities should trigger special moral scrutiny. However, libertarians will locate their judgment of moral failing in the failure of specific individuals or institutions to discharge their moral duties, not in the society at large. Nor would the libertarian necessarily see the moral problem as a failure of government to enforce neutrality in the receipt of care or achievement of the outcomes that specific individuals and institutions are properly committed to achieving.

In sum, even libertarianism, the theory of justice least compatible with the neutrality thesis, can substantially endorse the anti-discrimination thesis as applied to disparities in the receipt of services and in health outcomes. When using the lens of the anti-discrimination thesis, a libertarian might reach a more modest moral conclusion than the one we shall defend,and a libertarian does not endorse the more inclusive moral concern shown for disparities in health outcomes embodied in the neutrality thesis. However, in Section III, we explore some instances in which the libertarian view might agree with our conclusion that some patterns of racial and ethnic disparities should be counted as injustices, and not simply moral failings.

Egalitarian Theories

A family of justice theories known as egalitarian theories offers more solid support for both the neutrality thesis and the anti-discrimination thesis, even as those theories diverge substantially in their theoretical foundations. Egalitarians, unlike libertarians, are intrinsically concerned with the existence of inequalities. Egalitarians themselves differ as to how much inequality they find morally tolerable, the reasons they find inequalities to be morally problematic, and the kinds of inequalities they consider to be the central job of justice to combat.

One strand of egalitarianism prominent in the bioethics and health policy literature borrows heavily from the work of John Rawls (Rawls, 1971). The first principle of the Rawlsian theory is that everyone should be entitled first to an equal bundle of civil liberties (e.g., political and voting rights, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, etc), which shall not be abridged even for the sake of the greater welfare of society overall. Secondarily, everyone should be guaranteed a fair equality of opportunity. That principle of fair equality is given a robust, substantive interpretation such that permissible inequalities in such things as income and wealth work to the advantage of the least well-off segments of society. Fair equality of opportunity is thus a term of art, signaling more than a formal commitment to non-discrimination, but also an affirmative commitment to resources necessary to ensure that all citizens of comparable abilities can compete on equal terms. For Rawls, this commitment means a guarantee of educational resources sufficient for all persons to pursue opportunities such as jobs and positions of authority available to others within society.

Norman Daniels seizes on Rawls's core arguments (Daniels,1985). He accepts the core Rawlsian framework but offers a friendly amendment to the Rawlsian theory. Daniels claims that once we acknowledge that there are considerable differences in the health of individuals and that the consequence of those differences is that individuals differ substantially in their opportunities to pursue lifeplans, we must relax Rawls's own assumption about the rough equality of persons. Once this assumption is relaxed, the theory has implications for how we think about healthcare resources. If, as Daniels argues, health is especially strategic in the realization of fair equality of opportunity, and that healthcare services (broadly construed by Daniels) make a limited but important contribution to health, then we derive a right to healthcare sufficient to pursue reasonable life opportunities. The logic of Daniels' account clearly lends support to the neutrality thesis in as much as disparities in health outcomes are precisely the sort of consequences that the principle of fair equality of opportunity treats as unjust and therefore, as proper objects of remedial governmental action.

In addition, Daniels' version of the Rawlsian theory can be seen as lending support for the anti-discrimination thesis, although this is not an element of Daniels' theory that he himself highlights. For example, the theoretical support for treating inequalities in health outcomes among racial groups as unjust, as distinguished from a rationale that makes inequalities among persons generally unjust because of their adverse impact on equality of opportunity, lies in its endorsement of Rawls' core notion of a formal principle of equality. Rawls and Daniels both start their discussion of equality of opportunity with the formal principle that morally irrelevant distinctions should not be employed as a basis for determining the range of life opportunities open to persons. Matters of race, gender, and the like are counted as irrelevant, so if their claims are plausible, then even disparities in services received ( as well as disparities in health outcomes) based on racial and ethnic categories warrant some moral scrutiny.

Other members of the egalitarian family of justice theories offer more direct support for both theses. The “capabilities” approach argues that it is the job of justice to protect and facilitate a plurality of irreducibly valuable capabilities or functionings (Sen, 1992; Nussbaum, 2000). Capabilities theorists, led by Amartya Sen, generate slightly different lists of the core human capabilities central to the job of justice, but all converge on the idea that a variety of health functionings, including longevity and absence of morbidity, are among those centrally important human capabilities. Unlike the modified Rawlsian concept, which makes the importance of health and hence healthcare derivatively important because of health'se specially strategic role in preserving equality of opportunity, the capabilities approach reaches similar conclusions about the intrinsic importance of health, and more directly, the goods instrumental to its realization. Based on Sen's theory, inequalities among any of the core capabilities are matters of moral concern. Thus, as the neutrality thesis asserts, any finding of disparities in health outcomes should trigger moral scrutiny.

Among the core capabilities included on Sen's list are capacities for all to live their lives with the benefit of mutual respect and free from invidious discrimination.Thus, support for the anti-discrimination thesis also flows naturally from the capabilities approach inasmuch as the value of equal human dignity and respect is of fundamental moral importance, as is health. Disparities in services received, no less than disparities in health outcomes, therefore trigger a heightened moral scrutiny under a theory that renders inequalities of both sorts morally problematic.

Democratic Political Theory

Libertarian and egalitarian theories are two broad theoretical traditions that at face value seem to have the greatest divergence in their implications. However, they have been shown to result in greater convergence, at least on the anti-discrimination thesis, than might otherwise be suspected. Apart from the (perhaps) unexpected convergence of two quite different comprehensive moral theories on the interpretation of the formal principle of equality, there are additional philosophical arguments favoring the anti-discrimination thesis that do not require taking sides with any comprehensive moral views.

Recent work in political philosophy by John Rawls begins with the assumption of what he calls a reasonable pluralism of comprehensive moral views (Rawls, 1993). In a democratic nation, persons motivated to reach agreement on the basic social structure, understood as shared basis for social cooperation, will seek an overlapping consensus on some evaluative questions. That consensus will necessarily include a commitment to the view of each person as a free and equal citizen. While critics have questioned how much substantive moral content can be derived from this perspective, they generally agree that some underlying commitments are widely shared in any democracy (Gutmann and Thompson, 1996). Among them are the ideas that the interests of all should be given equal weight regardless of race, creed, color, gender or other attributes deemed morally irrelevant. Although such a notion does not settle the deeper moral question of which attributes are morally irrelevant, the crucial point is that such views form the bedrock of most Western democracies. Underlying this desire for equal respect and concern is the vague but powerful idea of human dignity and the importance we attach to equality of treatment for the least advantaged that the more powerful members of society have secured for themselves (Harris, 1988).

Thus, although there is a diversity of possible justifications for the importance of health and healthcare services, there is widespread basis for agreement that inequalities in health outcomes that track racial and ethnic lines, especially when racial and ethnic lines also track other indices of social disadvantage, are ethically problematic. This feature of democratic theory, reflected also in equal protection law, justifies at minimum the added moral scrutiny required by the anti-discrimination thesis.

• The Relevance of Causal Stories

So far we have established that egalitarian theories, and in particular capability theory, provide moral justification for the neutrality thesis. Thus, even with a libertarian view, the failure of individuals and institutions to offer health services to all racial groups on an equal basis can be a significant basis for moral condemnation. Even if the moral scrutiny demanded by the neutrality thesis and the added moral scrutiny demanded by the anti-discrimination thesis are warranted, this is not the final word. All that has been established thus far is that governments and health care institutions have a moral obligation to investigate identified disparities. The key questions are how governments and health care institutions should interpret the moral meaning of the results of such an investigation, whether disparities should be considered injustices, and under what conditions. On many moral accounts, an evaluation of the explanations for the disparities is needed to make a judgment about whether the disparities represent an injustice. In other words, whether disparities in health outcomes or in the services patients receive constitute an injustice depends for some on the causal story that stands behind the disparity. Thus, while there may be wide agreement about the moral imperative to investigate identified disparities, at least with respect to morally suspect groups, there is far less agreement about how to interpret the moral significance of the results of such an investigation.

The moral significance of causality is a difficult sticking point in moral philosophy. There is a natural inclination in theories of individual morality, as there is in law, to bind moral responsibility and causal responsibility together. We do not ordinarily think, for example, in law or morality, that an individual is morally culpable for adverse consequences arising from circumstances over which that individual had no control. Lack of causal efficacy is the end of the story for many assessments of moral and legal responsibility. Moreover, a judgment of causal responsibility is a threshold concern for many accounts of individual moral and legal responsibility, and the presence of some causal contribution to the harm of others opens the door to legal analysis. Theories of justice, however, are more varied and often more controversial than the individual model in their understandings of the relation between causal and moral responsibility.

Libertarian Views of the Relevance of Causal Explanations

Some theories of justice employ something similar to this individual moral responsibility model in their assessments of the justice of social institutions. Libertarians, for example, link a judgment of injustice to some intentional harm. That view holds that adverse consequences or disproportionate burdens borne by some individuals or groups as a consequence of the structure of social institutions do not warrant a judgment of injustice. The libertarian views these consequences for the most part as merely unfortunate, not unfair.

The libertarian view is an especially stringent rendering of the claim that moral responsibility for society and its political institutions is linked necessarily to a direct causal responsibility. It is a stringent standard as it demands that the causal connection be an intentional harm.

However, there is theoretical room for the libertarian to reach an even stronger conclusion that racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes and the receipt of health services are morally condemnable failings of particular persons or institutions. In some cases, the libertarian can conclude that these disparities are injustices. There are at least three ways that the libertarian can reach such conclusions.

First, for the libertarian, patterns of inequality are not morally troubling in themselves. However, this assertion is qualified by the proviso that those patterns are morally unproblematic only as long as they are not the consequence of prior injustices in social exchanges or agreements. This nod to historical context is crucially important. If the social and institutional history that causally contributes to present patterns of inequality are in and of themselves unjust, perhaps the result of past intentional harms whose adverse consequences remain today, then present patterns of inequality may be judged as unjust, and not merely a matter of moral failing of individuals or non-governmental institutions. There is nothing intrinsic to the libertarian view that makes it hostile to such historical claims regarding the legacy of racism, the intentional harms based on racial or ethnic prejudice, or the moral taint on the advantages obtained from such practices.

Second, for one brand of libertarian theorist, the constraint on coercive state appropriation of private assets for the purposes of achieving certain patterns of distribution does not entirely restrict what states can do with respect to redistribution. While private assets are put beyond the reach of states, not all resources are private. According to some libertarians, redistribution for the purposes of combating inequalities in the health care context are acceptable when it involves public resources or the decision to devote resources to activities that benefit the public at large. Medical education and the construction and operation of health care facilities are clear examples of public resources being invested deliberately for the promotion of the common good.

Even if the libertarian can argue that there is no antecedent duty to support such activities for the common good, the claim of allegiance to the state itself is said by some libertarians to de pend upon strict neutrality between its citizens (Nozick, 1974). This requirement of neutrality clearly makes all disparities in services received, as well as disparities in health outcomes such as racial and ethnic health outcome disparities, unjust. If the neutrality requirement endorsed by some libertarians is a strict one, as it is in Nozick's libertarian theory, then the proper test of neutral state action is neutrality of effect on its citizens (Raz, 1986). Thus, one particular interpretation of libertarianism supports the neutrality thesis.

Moreover, the moral failing associated with its violation is an injustice. Of course, not all libertarian theorists endorse the political neutrality thesis and accordingly, those libertarians would be committed neither to the neutrality thesis we have defended nor to the finding of an injustice if neutrality of effect is not achieved.

A third possible exception to the libertarian's general reluctance to see an injustice in any disparities in receipt of services or health outcomes, even in the case of racial and ethnic minorities, lies in the libertarian's account of what constitutes intentional harm. The typical definition of an intentional harm is one that is generated from a fully conscious or present-to-mind motivational stance. Therefore, overt racist actions would surely count as intentional harms. For example, if services were not offered to racial and ethnic minorities because of a conscious intention to make their health outcomes worse, or as a deliberate assault on their dignity, these denials of services would count as intentional harms. In this narrow range of cases, the libertarian has no choice but to support the anti-discrimination thesis and conclude that the moral failings involved are injustices.

Less clear, however, is how the libertarian must account for more subtle, often unconscious, instances of racism. The resolution depends on the view of intention employed by the theory. In our judgment, nothing intrinsic to the libertarian theory rules out a more expansive account of what constitutes an intentional harm, even though the ideological thrust of most libertarian theories would be naturally resistant to any effort to look behind an agent's conscious state of mind. The libertarian would have to articulate a plausible rationale for adopting the narrow construal, and as long as the core intuition of what constitutes an injustice is tied to intentional harm, limits on the psychological transparency of an agent's own true intention would seem to need a persuasive argument for such a restriction.

Brute Luck and Social Structural Egalitarian Views of Causality

Other justice theories, including two prominent versions of egalitarianism, make the locus of causal responsibility an important consideration. Consider first a rather permissive standard sometimes referred to as the brute luck conception of justice (Scanlon, 1989). Brute luck theories count as an injustice all those inequalities that are not due to the choices of individuals. All inequalities that are beyond a person's control are therefore judged as brute bad luck and deserving of remedy, or if the inequality cannot be eliminated, compensation. Such theories take an indirect account of the causal story leading to the inequality in as much as the only inequalities society does not have to eliminate are those said to be chosen. While responsibility for some inequalities is laid at the individual doorstep, the brute luck standard holds society morally responsible for all inequalities that the individual did not bring on by his or her own choices. For example, the brute luck view recognizes that inequalities that result from genetics, ill health not brought on by lifestyle choices, and being born into a poor, uneducated family are all illustrative of inequalities that should be remedied by society. The brute luck theory can be contrasted with an alternative claim that attempts to reign in the moral responsibility of society for unchosen ine qualities. The social structural concept argues that two conditions must be satisfied for society to incur an obligation to remedy inequalities: 1) the inequalities must not be the result of an individual's own choices and 2) those inequalities must not be attributable to natural fortune that the society had no hand in creating. Examples of natural bad fortune, for which no social remedy is due, include genetic differences and natural disasters. The focus is on the way social structures contribute to inequalities, and more specifically on the way that unjust social structures influence the creation of inequalities that reduce the life prospects of some people relative to others. Like the libertarian view, the social structural view demands proof that society had a causal hand in producing the inequality before it assigns society the moral responsibility for its elimination or reduction. The difference is that the social structural view does not require that the causal link between society and the inequality involve intentional harm. Instead, the social structural view adopts a less stringent requirement demanding only that the inequalities be an artefact or consequence of a particular social arrangement.

Let us next consider how the social structural and brute luck concepts might justify or limit the scope of application of a claim of injustice for disparities in health outcomes or health services. There are two important implications of the brute luck view. First, the brute luck standard provides robust justification for the injustice of inequalities that are covered by the neutrality thesis, but no special justification for the discrimination thesis. It would find all inequalities in health outcomes morally unjust, except for differences in health outcomes that are attributable to patient choice. . The brute luck view reaches this conclusion independent of whether the inequalities are concentrated within racial and ethnic minorities or the majority ethnic and racial population. The fact that inequalities cluster along racial and ethnic lines or along lines of social disadvantage adds nothing to the moral assessment insofar as no further factual information of any sort (including some sort of causal story) is needed to find an injustice.

Second, because the brute luck concept is indifferent to any casual inquiry beyond the role of individual choice, the brute luck view can provide no special justification for viewing inequalities in health services as injustices. For example, the brute luck view is indifferent to whether inequalities in health outcomes between patient groups are a result of disparities in access to health services or the impact of differential socioeconomic status and educational background. Both generate social duties to reduce or eliminate disparities in health outcomes. The fact of brute, unchosen inequality is enough.

The social structural concept takes a different view. Attaching a judgment of injustice to disparities in services or outcomes along lines of racial and ethnic minority status-- especially if burdened with other social disadvantages (the anti-discrimination thesis)-- is entirely consonant with the social structural view. The claim of the neutrality thesis, which is that disparities in health outcomes that do not necessarily involve disadvantaged groups also constitute an injustice, also can be accommodated by the social structural view, but only if a different set of morally relevant considerations can be brought to bear. Because the social structural view requires a causal story linking the social structure to health outcomes disparities, the case for injustice when disparities involve majority racial and ethnic patient groups would be more difficult to make than it would be for racial and ethnic groups who also experience broader social disadvantages. Even for these latter groups, a social structural view would necessitate the telling of a somewhat complex causal story to reach the conclusion that the inequalities are a matter of injustice and the responsibility of society to remedy. .

The Relevance of Individual Causal Responsibility

A key question faced by libertarian, social structural, and brute luck theories is just how much of the causal story needs to be sorted out before deciding whether a disparity constitutes an injustice. All of these theories exclude from the realm of social responsibility inequalities generated by the choices and actions of individuals. But is this blanket exclusion plausible? This is where many of our most influential theories of justice appear ham-handed when compared with the kinds of moral intuitions that influence much of social policy in the United States and other industrial nations. For example, health insurance and welfare laws generally eschew fine-grained apportionment of individual, social and natural causal contributions to ill health. In many respects, health insurance plays the role of a kind of social safety net, catching those who fall through, regardless of the cause.

There are at least two potential explanations for why the moral foundations of many aspects of social policy do not fit well with some leading theories of justice. First, the apportionment of individual, natural, and social responsibility is, in practice, extremely difficult to disentangle. Second, because apportioning causal responsibility is often so hard to do, it is fraught with the risk of error and is potentially unfair. There is no doubt that these difficulties both explain and justify why public policy relies on moral lenses that deliberately leave some elements of the causal story out of focus. We think that the right mix of moral lenses leaves such differences out of account when examining health outcomes , This is the insight captured in the claim of injustice attaching to the inequalities coming under the scrutiny of the neutrality thesis. It is also the moral basis of public health, which finds any disparity in health outcomes to be morally problematic, regardless of who is affected. However, we argue that a a special moral sensitivity to the constellation of race, ethnicity, and social disadvantage should be added back into the mix , especially when we have ample reason to believe that, although the precise causal story is complex, racial differences have made a dramatic contribution to the disproportionate burdens that are an artefact of the social structure. This is the insight captured by the claim of injustice attaching to the inequalities coming under scrutiny by the anti-discrimination thesis.

From this stereoscopic vantage point we turn to a few examples of how patient choices and behavior fit into the arguments thus far. Although neither the neutrality thesis nor the anti-discrimination thesis rejects the notion that patient choices and actions make a moral difference in assessing the injustice of disparities in health outcomes, we deny that patient choice and behavior necessarily vitiate a conclusion of injustice.

Consider, for example, how that argument for the moral decisiveness of a patient's own choice to refuse treatment offered and recommended might seem to settle the issue of injustice once and for all. One possible explanation for some disparities in health services is that racial and ethnic groups exhibit different preferences for some types of medical care. Some groups may have higher aversion rates, for example, to invasive coronary care procedures. In some instances, preference differences make all the moral difference and a conclusion of injustice associated with disparities in the receipt of care may be rebutted. However, even if disparities in utilization rates are explained primarily by differences in uptake, rather than differences in offering, that is not necessarily the end of the matter. For example, gaps in mammography use between white and African-American women have closed considerably over less than a decade. This has been a consequence of public health education and outreach campaigns mounted on the assumption that gaps in knowledge and awareness, not merely a matter of differences in individual preferences or cultural values, accounted for differences in mammography rates.

Others have argued that minority aversion to the utilization of beneficial treatments might be based on a reasonable distrust of medical institutions and personnel (Randall, 1996). Whether such distrust is widespread is an empirical matter, and determining whether such distrust is reasonable lies beyond our task here. However, to the extent that the formation of preferences among racial and ethnic minorities is a product of a legacy of intentional discrimination that results in disparities in utilization and health outcomes, the fact that patient preferences account for all or some portion of those disparities does not obviate their injustice. If the preferences themselves are the fruit of a morally tainted history of institutional relationships, those who occupy positions of authority within those institutions have continuing moral obligations to ensure that patient preferences that are detrimental to racial and ethnic minorities are not systematically disadvantaging. In short, our view argues for looking behind or beyond mere preference in some instances to make a moral assessment of racial and ethnic disparities in the uptake of health services and in the resulting disparities in health outcomes.

Libertarian theories of justice, as well as most forms of egalitarianism, are mute on whether preferences must be taken at their face value. Many brute luck theorists believe that some preferences are beyond voluntary control and are instances of brute bad luck for which there is a duty to remedy (Cohen,1993). The capability theorist also admits the possibility that some preferences are shaped by norms and institutions that involve unjust discrimination (for example, women's preferences for female circumcision . However, the idea of looking behind preferences is not the exclusive theoretical property of the brute luck theorist or any other particular theory. If the preferences themselves bear the moral taint of social structural injustices, then the social structural theorist cannot object. If the preferences bear the moral taint of intentional harms, then the libertarian cannot object. The difference is that each requires a different causal story to reach a conclusion of injustice when individual preference would ordinarily settle the moral matter in favor of there being no injustice.

Under all major accounts of justice, much of the work leading to a judgment of injustice involves getting the causal story straight, with some seeing overwhelming social determinants of such behaviors at work and others doubting the conclusiveness of the evidence and fearing the consequences of widespread belief in its truth. Although we lack the expertise to sort out these factual debates, our claim is a simpler one: there is too much at stake morally in ignoring the real possibility of some social structural causation. The demand for a precise apportionment of causal responsibility fails to take seriously the potential moral salience of the continuing effects of the legacy of racism and discrimination. Attaching a presumption of injustice to disparities in health outcomes that cluster along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines is responsive to the need to fashion public policy with an awareness of the moral saliency of that legacy. Once again, we note that even the libertarian must attend to the importance of that history, for libertarianism is, in its own terms, a theory whose application is constrained by the assumption that patterns of inequalities are morally benign only when they emerge from a historical milieu in which injustices are not causally transmitted into the present context. In our view, few libertarians can claim that confidence when it comes to matters of race.

Moreover, at least for matters as central to human flourishing as health, we agree with the capabilities approach. The capabilities approach does not generally insist on the complete causal story to count disparities in health outcomes as instances of injustice. Moreover, the capabilities view demands additional moral scrutiny for racial and ethnic disparities in health care services and outcomes for moral reasons that have their foundation in capabilities other than health. These are capabilities that signal the importance of living a life as a free and equal moral person and enjoying the respect and dignity accorded to all citizens (Faden and Powers, 1999).

• Implications for Physicians, Nurses and Other Providers of Health Care Services

From the perspective of the health professional, the bottom line of this analysis can be summarized as follows. All the theories that we have reviewed have reasons to morally condemn disparities in health services and health outcomes involving racial and ethnic minorities. These theories have different reasons for reaching this conclusion, and they do not all agree that such disparities necessarily constitute an injustice. However, they all agree that race and ethnicity are morally irrelevant to the distribution of health care services and the outcomes with which these services are associated. Even from a libertarian viewpoint, the failure of individuals and institutions to offer health services to all racial groups on an equal basis can be a significant reason for moral condemnation.

In some respects, this is stating what is morally obvious. It is wrong for health professionals to discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity. General moral duties of equal respect, as well as role-specific duties of the healing professions, obligate health professionals to accord equal consideration to each patient. The Hippocratic Oath requires physicians to apply treatments “for the benefit of the sick”and to “keep [patients] from harm and injustice” (Edelstein, 1967). The standard interpretation of the Hippocractic tradition concludes that such duties be applied impartially, and that no matter of personal preference or prejudice should compromise those duties with respect to any patient (Pellegrino and Thomasma, 1988). The Code of Ethics of the American Nurses' Association similarly argues that the foundation of their professional duties rests in duties of beneficence impartially applied to all patients (American Nurses' Association, 1985). Health care professionals are also obligated to address the moral context in which they work and to take responsibility for ensuring that equal respect and treatment is accorded by colleagues and by the health care organization where they work. To the extent that unconscious biases compromise their impartial duties toward their patients, there are derivative moral duties to identify and counteract those biases.

One aim of this paper is to defend the view that racial and ethnic disparities are not merely matters of individual moral failing on the part of health professionals, but are also social injustices. Insofar as health professionals and professional organizations subscribe to this view, they should take a leadership role in advocating for interventions to reduce these disparities. It is here that good empirical data, capable of teasing apart the various factors that contribute to racial disparities, are critical. Ethical arguments can justify the need for social action, but knowing precisely how to effectively intervene requires an integration of ethics with facts.

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. We do not claim that the neutrality thesis and the anti-discrimination thesis offer an exhaustive account of the sources of value underpinning the broader range of moral concerns in health care policy. We have argued elsewhere that in addition to medical outcomes some arguments for universal health care may depend as much on their impact on aspects of human well being other than health (Faden and Powers, 1999).

• Cite this Page Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care; Smedley BD, Stith AY, Nelson AR, editors. Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2003. RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISPARITIES IN HEALTH CARE: AN ETHICAL ANALYSIS OF WHEN AND HOW THEY MATTER.
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Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

Jean "maid" adams;joan singler; bettylou valentine.

The Seattle Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) began in earnest during the Summer of 1961. A previous attempt to start a Seattle chapter in the late 1950s never got off the ground, but the sit-in movement and freedom rides in the South sparked new interest and renewed commitment to using nonviolent direct action to challenge racism and racial segregation in the Pacific Northwest.

From 1961 to 1965, Seattle CORE served as the muscle behind the city’s civil rights movement. It challenged mainstream Seattle’s complacency by calling attention to the city’s pervasive practices of employment discrimination, housing discrimination, and “defacto” school segregation.

CORE activists adapted civil rights movement tactics popularly associated with the South to solve social problems in the Pacific Northwest. They followed a rigorous program to identify problems through intensive research, negotiate to solve them, and utilize direct action to demand results if negotiation failed. While its commitment to direct action set Seattle CORE apart from more moderate local organizations, it worked in coalition with the NAACP, the Urban League, and black churches through an umbrella organization, the Central Area Civil Rights Committee.

Joan Singler, Bettylou Valentine, and Jean “Maid” Adams (from left to right) were active members in Seattle CORE during its most intensive period of activity. Joined by Jean Durning, Singler, Adams, and Valentine are authors of _Seattle in Black and White: The Congress of Racial Equality and the Fight for Equal Opportunity_ (University of Washington Press, 2011)

Singler, Valentine, and Adams shared their memories about Seattle CORE’s history with Trevor Griffey and James N. Gregory on October 6, 2006.

They describe campaigns to desegregate Seattle’s grocery stores, department stores, neighborhoods and schools. They also discuss early 1960s civil rights movement culture: its emphasis on respectability, all-consuming lifestyle, multi-racial sensibility, and the indispensable role of women to the movement. The interview concludes with a discussion of how the War on Poverty, Black Power, and the anti-Vietnam war movement helped CORE activists grow in new directions in the late 1960s.

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