Introduction
Racial and ethnic groups offer policymakers an archetypal magnetism/dodging clash. Shielding the constitutional rights of workers from bigotry enables exposure of the vice by ethnic/tribal groups. However, only some edifying intercessions are supported by meaningful cultural national distinctiveness among workers. Consequently, classifying employees by race or traditions interferes with their growth whereas offering policymakers diminutive data for scheduling policies. Obviously, with the No Child Left behind Act, subcultures of employees ought to have been disaggregated so that each individual carries on with life sufficiently. However, the yearly objective is tailored for every worker — not disjointedly for every faction.
Ethnic group elevates both pessimistic and constructive subtext. Unconstructive subtexts are inclined to the interior culture and more or less termed as open intolerance to various factions. An affirmative overtone seems to be linking the emotions of groupings and communal cultural setting. As the workplace organization and the Budget admits, customary and systematic classifications of race and traditions are less functional and suitable as opposed to realistic designations that may classify employees in the ways they may come across prejudice.
Certainly a few policymakers and scholars have referred to race and cultural groupings as somewhat diverse, such as residents assemblies, and the classification would be the racial cluster or crowd that natives identify with or fit in. This paper endeavors to scrutinize the possible perils in the USA Patriotic Act, evaluate it, identify barriers towards its amendment and finally suggest ways that would be applied in cleaning up the menace. The paper achieves this by taking a the form of a case study
US Patriot Act
USA PATRIOT ACT was enacted in 2001 in reaction to the September 11, bomb attack on the US. Reauthorization was passed in 2005 by Senate and made permanent most of the previous provisions about to expire in 2005. The Act strengthens and gives more authority to the federal agencies over individual privacy and secrecy of information. There is more federal authority on foreigners in the US and on electronic communications limiting the privacy of individuals as previously enjoyed (Abele, 2005). Some of the sections of the law have been contested in court with rulings made in favor of the applicant and some sections being nullified.
Organizational policy
In every organization, all workers are supposed to be treated equally as the constitution states clearly that all are equal before the law. In America, every person is given an equal opportunity to explore various avenues of opportunities in a bid to ensure every person can sustain his/herself while at the same time contributing to nation building efforts. Discrimination and harassment are unconstitutional and thus as in an organization, all are treated equally with every individual given an equal platform on which one can further and perfect the acquired skills. Individual properties are respected and no organizational activity should be deemed to be undermining individual freedom or privacy. Letters to the various personnel are dispatched without tampering with them in a bid to verify the contents (Scheppler, 2006).
The privacy Act
The Act gives federal agencies authority to intercept individual or corporate electronic communications perceived to be related to terrorism. Emails of individuals are also put under scrutiny with their contents disclosed by the various agencies. The Act is specifically discriminatory since aliens are mostly targeted with their bank accounts being scrutinized and under constant check in an effort to ensure they do not fund terrorism. The area of residents especially of aliens also under surveillance with their activities, especially those touted to be terrorists, being closely monitored. Computer communications not spared either with computer trespasser intercepted by the federal authority.
Organizational view on the Act
As an organization, the policies of the Patriot Act are very oppressive and going against the constitutional rights of individuals. Discrimination and harassment have been propagated by the Act, as federal agencies tend to launch the individual surveillance and interception, not mainly on the individual actions but on race and religion. As an organization, employees are never judged on their social inclinations, religion, or race. All races and tribes are given equal opportunities as policies have been put in place stating that individuals are judged by their productivity level, efforts and loyalty rather than race, place of origin or religious beliefs (Smith & Hung, 2010).
The Patriot Act is not desirable for any organizational functioning or policy formulations. The Act gives federal agencies the authority to detain persons perceived to be terrorists at the same time freezing their bank accounts and all of their assets in a bid to preventing the suspects from obtaining any form of support. The Act also provides for disclosure of private and confidential information to the agencies by financial institutions about their clients.
This goes against the professional business ethics. Furthermore, the information in most cases does not lead to any meaningful terrorism arrests. Most of the suspects are only investors whose main aim is for business purposes rather than terrorism. The Act’s provisions are thus discriminatory and leave many individuals especially aliens vulnerable to harassment and torture.
All organizations are governed by formulated policies that are transparent and apply to all personnel. This ensures that the organization is put before and above individuals and as a result, individuals are deterred from misusing their power hence the levels of discrimination and harassment is significantly reduced. The Act on the other hand does not respect the set institutions like courts. This is portrayed in the Act’s provision that allows for detention of persons or removal of non-citizens without judicial review. The government has also been given the powers to detain suspected terrorists without trial and monitoring foreign students and all activities they engage in. Such an act is discriminatory since the majority of foreign students has nothing to do with terrorism and is as vulnerable to terrorism like any other group.
Such monitoring can be psychologically disturbing to individuals because they cannot engage in social activities with their American peers freely as they feel someone is watching over them even when not being monitored. This creates disorders such as paranoia and depression and such students are even unable to accomplish their studies. In an organization, basing on experience, such measures should be avoided as they lower the productivity capacity of employees. They also go against human rights of individuals that should be maintained and observed at all time. In implementing organizational policies on harassment and discrimination, it becomes valuable to consider the diverse nature of employees and formulating the appropriate policies that are accommodative.
Instead of placing harsh conditions on aliens and foreigners that in most cases are against the constitution and human right of individuals, it would be better for the government to tackle pertinent issues such as American imperialism. Terrorism is only a result of the main problem facing America of which the main problem is the perception the outside world has about America. International relations should be improved with diplomacy being preferred instead of military confrontations. Countries such as China and Japan are global powerhouses but are not faced with the serious danger of terrorism like the US.
The system thus needs to think of a better way of tackling terrorism rather than imposing strict rules that are discriminatory. In this era of globalization, immigrants will always flow to the US and thus discriminatory acts against them do not portray the true image of the American nation. This applies to all organizations to also liberalize their policies and ensure that individuals are first treated like human beings before going to the national and race entities (Ewing and Doyle, 2005).
The Outcomes of the Act
The Act’s implementation has not been objective as the process has been mainly associated with abuses. The Act has been one of the reasons cited for the over a hundred percent increase on hate crimes against American Muslims. The Act portrays the Muslim states as terrorists resulting to religious intolerance in the American society. American Muslim community has been struggling with civil rights especially since 2003. The Act’s measures against terrorist suspects of whom many are Muslims have given the society a reason to continue discriminatory acts against Muslims. Almost half of the anti-Muslim incident complaints reported have been committed because of the government’s anti-terrorism policies.
As observed by Scheppler (2006), the government at one time ordered the registration of male non-citizen visitors of whom the majorities were Muslims; over thirteen thousand Muslims were deported as a result. The sweeping powers of the government in probing and monitoring individuals have been questioned. The Act calls for institutions to seek customer details and probe their authenticity and if falsified they should take action. As a result, there have been many reported cases of bank accounts of Muslims being locked behind bars without notice or further explanations; others denied credit cards, bank officials citing the Act’s provisions. This discrimination has been even extended to the US born Muslim citizens.
Harassment cases on Muslims have also increased significantly since the Act came to effect. The constitution has not stated the religion of the US and thus no religion is recognized as the federal religion with all religions being treated as equal. The act has thus resulted in contradicting the constitution in having discriminatory clauses.
For an organization, such treatment and oppressive acts are avoided. The policies of the organization are structured in such a way that all people are equally treated and the requirements for each individual employee are similar. Discrimination and harassment acts are discouraged at all costs. To ensure that the policies against harassment and discrimination are implemented efficiently and objectively, all the diverse employees from different cultural and religious inclinations are required to ensure no individual is contradicting the policies by engaging in acts that are not allowed. Suggestion boxes and employees’ representatives have been encouraged to improve communication in the organization. Seminars and workshops have also been organized in light to stamping out discrimination and harassment.
Evaluation of the Act
As indicated above, the US Patriot Act seems to do more harm than good. The Act discriminates against non-citizens, and oppresses the Constitutional rights of the individual. In a business setting, equal opportunities for employees are in place, and should employees and/or management violate these rights, there would be serious consequences. The US should be held to the same standard.
For an organization, such treatment and oppressive acts are avoided. The policies of the organization are structured in such a way that all people are treated equally and the requirements for each individual employee are similar. Discrimination and harassing acts are discouraged at all costs, including termination. To ensure the policies against harassment and discrimination are implemented efficiently and objectively.
All the diverse employees from different cultural and religious inclinations are required to ensure no individual is contradicting the policies by engaging in acts that are not allowed. Suggestion boxes and employees’ representatives have been encouraged to improve communication in the organization. Seminars and workshops have also been organized in light of preventing harassment and discrimination and to exhibit the consequences of such actions.
The attacks of September 11 instilled fear within the US government and the Act is a result of that fear. However, this document has left law enforcement a wide berth to conduct activities that are against the basic civil rights of individuals living in the US. Provisions were in place prior to the Act to attempt to protect the US. Many of them were not enforced. As a country, the government did not see that terrorism would ever be a problem on US soil.
One safeguard that should be implemented to avoid abuse of the Act would be to define “domestic terrorism.” As the Act is written now, the term includes anyone, even college groups involved in protesting war. This is in direct violation of the Constitutional right to freedom of speech, which is one of the rights that the US is known for (Totenberg, 2010). Specifically defining domestic terrorism may assist in mitigating the risk of violating an individual’s civil rights (Iftikhar, 2005).
Additionally, the Act should be modified to reflect the basic rights of the US such as “all men are created free.” This does not mean all men within a certain culture, religion, or race. It is meant to reflect all men, human beings, legal immigrants, men, women and children. If a suspected terrorist is identified, under the Constitution, they are still entitled to due process (Khalil, 2002). The act of incarcerating an individual is barbaric and inhuman and is in direct violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (Walenta, 2010).
Modification of the Act is desperately needed. In order to affect this change, it would be wise for a group to be established that can research and present the solutions to Congress. Although there are many groups like this in existence, a new organization made up of citizens who are well versed in the Act could be implemented to show the government the damage that the Act is doing to its own citizens. The members of the group should include all individuals who are looking to protect their basic civil liberties. A public group that infers peaceful resolution rather than violent protest can prevent the group from falling apart under the Act’s regulations.
If the issues were presented to the government in an organized, well thought out manner, perhaps they would listen. In any event, the message would be heard, and regardless of the outcome, this group may begin to effect change. There are rallies, marches, and peaceful protests for many groups who want to enforce their Constitutional rights, some of which are violent groups. The Act may want to focus more on the groups that are known offenders rather than individuals who are looking for their basic civil rights and by publicizing this group’s agenda in a constructive manner this could be accomplished.
This pie chart represents the number of US citizens that would like to see ratification of the Act.
This graph is based on numbers provided by the ACLU and the US Census Bureau. The blue colored part shows the fraction of American citizens who admit to abolishing the Act (Longley, n.d.). These brave individuals are willing to risk being victims of the Act, rather than stand aside and remain silent towards the injustices provided by such a discriminatory piece of legislation. Many others fear retaliation and being next victims of the Act.
Race, Ethnicity, Discrimination and Stereotyping
Racial and ethnical discrimination and stereotypes are important issues a contemporary society faces. In this section, we are going to address the issues of race and ethnicity and define and analyze the components of discrimination and stereotyping.
Contemporary discrimination practices have their roots in the history of development of the United States and are closely related to American anti-Semitism that was part of the late-nineteenth century racism emigrant from all parts of the world, as well as African Americans, Native Americans and Mexicans. The discriminatory treatment included closing the doors to immigration from Europe and Mexicans, between 1882 and 1927 (Ore, 2009). Contemporary discriminatory practices are done towards African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. They include denying equal access to opportunities, certain housing areas or membership in social organizations.
In the contemporary society, there is still a room for hidden forms of racism against ethnic groups mentioned earlier. The situation has changed since the early 1990’s when blatant racism was more common for them.
In the contemporary society, there is still a room for hidden forms of racism against ethnic groups mentioned earlier.
Barriers to Implementation of Policies
Various interpretations of the terms “race” and “ethnicity” can lead to the types of discrimination identified in the first section. Thus, “race” is often associated with physical specifications such as skin color, and “ethnicity is defined through the background, historical or cultural. Historically, people created various forms of prejudices about race and ethnicity. Thus, the prejudice that African Americans are “low-intelligent” race leads to the institutional and employment discrimination.
Race and ethnicity are defined on two models (social and biological). Both of them state that there are dominant and subjective race. However, they have considerable gaps. For example, from the biological perspective, all people have the same construction and functions of the body and it is ridiculous to distribute people into different races. From the social perspective, all people are members of the society they live in and according the same social rules, thus, this gap in the sociological model cannot proper reflect race and ethnic identity.
There are voluntary and involuntary models used to promote discrimination. Separatism model suggests that racial groups should be segregated from the rest of society. Assimilation model is associated with the issue of racial supremacy. For example, it defines what races are allowed to assimilate with the dominant culture, and what races will not fit social and political standards of the dominant race. Pluralistic model defined a racial group as a distinguished one and, according to Hochschild and Rogers (2000), “groups will not dissolve into an anodyne melting pot, but individuals will have considerable leeway in deciding how and how much group identity matters to their lives”.
Thus, racial profiling contributes to personal, spiritual, political, and procedural conflicts identified in the previous assignment. For example, as it has already been mentioned, the Patriot Act’s provisions are discriminatory and leave many individuals especially aliens vulnerable to harassment and torture. The race of the individual becomes “an identification” used to attribute him/her to terrorists. Moreover, federal agencies have the right to freeze bank accounts of persons perceived as terrorist. It is a form of racial discrimination as well.
This analysis can be helpful in addressing the issue of international relations of the United States with other countries. We suggest that it is necessary to consider the diverse nature of employees within organizations, as well as people in communities, schools and other organizations. Racial prejudices should not be issues for classifying people in “bad” and “good” ones. In addition, international relations should be improved with diplomacy being preferred instead of military confrontations based on racial diversity. Race and ethnic identity of a person is often a reason for social discrimination. The Patriot Act should find different approaches to international relations in order prevent racial and ethnic discrimination.
Interventions to Issues of Race and Ethnicity
One proposal for moving away from the ethnicity and racial cultures is to enlarge the small group to higher civilization by centering on worldwide benefit such as the atmosphere. Unluckily, this model is not expected to do well especially when discussing agendas regarding to cryptogram of harmony and regulations of hostility. It should be acknowledged that unconstructive outlooks frequently overshadow the outlooks of optimistic feeling.
Orthodoxy could be a further suitable word as opposed to teamwork, and consistency is simply preferred when there is rivalry or danger from a different faction. When the environmental group or humanism gets into the activities of cluster insensitivity to substitute ethnocentrism, it will perhaps be undertaken in a conservative manner, a minority race or ethnic group will be detested and damned, possibly as humans not in favor of civilization.
A real amalgamation of human race will necessitate something reminiscent of an assault challenge from external force. The superior the cluster of a race or ethnic group the lesser the percentage of its associates with sky-scraping status. In some factions, there is only one prime man, and the control of the grouping does not enlarge with cluster magnitude at the equal rate as the grade and file. A subordinate associate of a collection is such a strain that reward is desirable, or else the individual will pull out from the faction if achievable. One of techniques utilized in balancing squat grading is stressing supremacy in relation to the exterior race or ethnic group.
The inferior the race or ethnic group, the more group egotism is produced as reparation. To sustain and legalize rivalry, the t inferior ethnic group or race is regularly located exterior to civilization. However, if the inferior ethnic group or race is diverse and not considered a danger, the contrast mislays its significance. Low-status factions in wealthy states obtain miniature comfort in identifying that they have a greater welfare as opposed to citizens in emerging economies.
Enhanced and more reliable data collection should be performed because it assists in evaluating and tumbling racial inequalities. Failures in data compilation hinder the endeavors within states and thwarts attempts to comprehend divergences among states. Tremendously, a few state examination structures still classify the entire ethnic and cultural factions as black or white only. The conventional public norm for data compilation depends upon the groups incorporated in the Federal Office of administration and Budget’s order. States should therefore assemble and account for collected statistics on the cultural and racial subtexts that are inherent there, and they ought to come up with policies that spot gaps in existing facts for small groups.
Valuable appraisal of agendas facilitates categorization of most excellent observations amongst state agendas, orders, conventions, and proposals, although the investigators may rapidly be faced with a scarcity of research reviewing and certification efficiency.
The phrase “greatest practice” should be abandoned and replaced with a more indistinct phrase “capable practices.” Practices are termed as hopeful depending on researches and other information, over and above proposals made by pollsters, planning specialists, and state bureaucrats. The failures in locating greatest actions calls for the suggestion that investigators and civic administrators work jointly to assess the efficiency of discrepancy intercession and to certify and publish these agendas and strategies that capitulate to optimistic outcomes. On the other hand, there is a necessity of spotting intercessions that cannot function so that funds can be utilized prolifically.
The policymakers need to accentuate stronger ethnic and linguistic proficiency in all inequality lessening actions .Ethnically and linguistically suitable deliveries are services that are reverential and receptive to racial and linguistic wishes. Ethnic feeling is the capacity to counter the outlooks, thoughts, or state of affairs of persons or factions sharing a universal and idiosyncratic ethnic, public, spiritual, linguistic, or literary legacy. Ethnic and racial hurdles have been proved to be enhancing the cost of services. States must come up with stricter values for racially and ethnically proficient wellbeing; undertake information gathering and studies on victorious practices; back training, schooling, and improvement of more experienced personnel; and examine and implement the usefulness of programs. In the entire main concern vicinities, states need sustenance from the central administration and fundamentals.
Employee expansion agendas and upgrading to the cultural proficiency of every part of an organization also contribute to wellbeing and integration. Even though Latinos, African Americans, and American Indian/Alaska inhabitants constitute up to 25 percent of the U.S. residents, they add up to simply 6 percent of physicians and less than 14 percent of the certified nurses. White-high profession specialist and businesspersons are unlikely likely to work in federally chosen deficiency regions as opposed to their counterparts in other races.
Cultural prestige of people is connected with superior contribution at work resulting to advanced service delivery hence leading to contentment, and better observance to management. States have embarked on several programs aimed at developing the conduit of marginalized practitioners, nevertheless, states should enlarge and advance attempts meant to expand the working conditions of the employees, and they have to support them by classifying preeminent practices.
Conclusion
The problem of Ethnicity and race is a big challenge to the policymakers both in private and public organizations. An issue has threatened to divide the country into various subcultures because every ethnic group and race identifies themselves with certain distinct features. The government officials have found it hard to come up with strategies that are all encompassing mainly because of the continued resistance from some groups feeling that their interests are well catered in the plans. In general, the government is trying but more effort has to be put for there to be equality and equity in distribution of both material and non-material resources.
It can be concluded that ethnic and racial groupings cannot be eliminated in the country but instead it can be engaged to function positively. The policymakers should conduct an extensive research to identify how racial groupings have affected the development of the country. Upon the findings, the government should design policies basing on the findings. The issue extending favors to racial members at workplaces should be discouraged and severe measures ought to be formulated to deal with the problem.
References
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