Table of Contents
This section seeks to give enlightening information on equality of all citizens before the laws of the land. Since 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was enacted and designed to protect employees from any form of discrimination based on; sex, color, religion, state of origin, race and creed there have been tremendous changes that have been designed to make all the US citizens equal before the law without discrimination. The US government realized that it is important without discrimination to provide equal opportunities to all and prevent discrimination on grounds of; sex, race, disability, marital status, religion, age, religion and sexual orientation.
Discrimination can occur when an individual is treated less favorably than (another or) others on grounds of sex, race, marital status, sexual orientation, age, disability or religion. Also it can occur when a requirement is imposed to specifically bar a certain proportion of the population on the above grounds. The federal government emphasizes that discrimination is unacceptable and can lead to disciplinary action. But we can clearly see that the government has lost grasp of this and the equal opportunity is being lost as citizens are being discriminated upon in various sectors like in healthcare, education, on various grounds of sex, religion, race and disability.
Shirley Tilgman says that she sees an equal opportunity in education as a major issue in the US as the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen. The poor cannot afford the best education in the country as they simply cannot afford the fees. She further argues that “professional pressures at the beginnings of careers are particularly difficult for women” (Tilghman 1998), clearly discrimination can take extreme and blatant forms. This pressure for women usually comes at a time when women are pregnant or want to spend time with their small young ones. “They tend to have smaller laboratories than male peers hired at the same time, and they tend to have negotiated worse arrangements for start-up grants, for the portion of their research grants …”(Sigmondo 2004 ).
There’s also the discrimination that men are ‘gifted’ more in Science, Engineering and Mathematics than women, as late as 2005 a Harvard University’s President Lawrence even invoked biology as an explanation for the differences and thus men are the stereotypical engineers and scientists in the US- this is clearly an equal opportunity lost in the education sector; discrimination against women.
There’s also discrimination against race in the education sector. This occurs when one is discriminated against pigmentation, skin and (or) complexion. Indices of racial segregation that occurs in employment are usually presented for black and non-Hispanic white workers in the same job. At each level of occupation, women are more racially discriminated than men in their places of work. Since 1965, research has shown that there’s racial segregation in housing and schooling in the US thus the fact that in a neighborhood in a city composition of different races varies.
Healthcare
The cost of healthcare in the US has been rising to unaffordable levels for millions of Americans. Healthcare is high in priority on political and public campaigns and agendas- issues of accessibility and cost are paramount. Data shows that more and more Americans who are uninsured continues to rise, in 2005, 46.5million were uninsured this was 15.9% of the population and another 16 million were underinsured. The majorities of these Americans have less access to good care and are in poor health and are most likely to die earlier.
Related Sociology essays
0
Preparing Orders
0
Active Writers
0%
Positive Feedback
0
Support Agents