Should Affirmative Action be accepted or should it be eliminated? That question was posed to Cerritos College Faculty Federation Executive Director Peter Nguyen and Political Science Instructor Dr. Bryan Reece at the Political Science Club meeting last Thursday.

During the debate Nguyen and Reece had 15 minutes to explain their position.

Nguyen took the position of support of affirmative action and Reece opposed affirmative action.

“There are two types of discrimination right now,” Reece began, “And they are institutional racism and individual which understanding the difference is important.”

He added that institutional racism is when there is discrimination in hiring process basis on race, religion such as the Jews because of anti-Semitism, women, and homosexuals but “over the last 40 years affirmative action policy is being eliminated.

In addition, “There is a sense of ‘in-your-face’ history of discrimination where in the southern states there were official signs that said, ‘whites only or men only'” Reece continued, “However, now this country is overly diverse.”

Nguyen disagreed.

Affirmative action was an issue that was debated during the 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case Green vs. The New Kent County School Board that determined that segregated schools were unconstitutional.

Nguyen said that during the time that public schools were segregated the students who attend the two unidentified schools in the county chose to attend a black or white school.

“Desegregation was not forced upon,” he said, “but more, affirmative action is a good faith of a correction.”

Furthermore, Nguyen said that 80 to 90 percent of people who were Chief Executive Officers of business corporations were caucasian male.

Afterward, both Nguyen and Reece made their last point as why they affirmed their position.

However, Nguyen did emphasis that affirmative action was a faith of correction.

“The government no longer needs to force affirmative action, Reece said, “Because women, homosexuals and jews are the ones that have broken down the continuous discrimination being faced.”

Listening to both sides of the argument, students like Lisa Lopez, business administration major, said that it was interesting.

“There is discrimination against people and (we as a society) have to keep that in mind, she said, “But also it is important that people continue to education themselves and realize that there are ways for people not to discriminate.”

David Bricks, accounting major, said that Reece had the difficult task of proving why affirmative action was wrong and that he thought that Nguyen had a clear point of view.