By Michael Foster-Sanders/campus editor

Imagine a minority high school student working hard studying so they could be in the position to be selected to go to the college of their choice. Their ducks are in a row with great grades, excellent SAT scores and extracurricular activities.

An admissions letter comes in the mail, and they’re denied entry to the college of their choice. And it’s not because they didn’t have what it takes but because their parents didn’t have the money to bribe their way in.

This is why affirmative action is needed.

It isn’t a new thing when it comes to having resources to tip the balance in a person’s favor, but it sheds a light on the myth of working hard to be successful in America.

Minorities are told to work hard, to pull yourselves up by the bootstraps like other Americans did, don’t take handouts and do it the right way. But the offspring of the privileged are receiving every lifeline to make sure their success is unparalleled by any means necessary.

Affirmative action is a set of procedures designed to eliminate unlawful discrimination among applicants, remedy the results of prior discrimination and prevent such discrimination in the future.

Critics of the law claim that, in this supposedly post-racial America, The Executive Order 10925 that former president John F. Kennedy set it motion in 1961 is no longer necessary.

But one only has to look at the past when all it took was being a white male, knowing someone and having cash to guarantee a college education.

What affirmative action does is level the playing field so a college campus can be more representative of how the American landscape really is.

There are Dreamers whose parents came to America so their child could have a better life, children from the inner-city ghettos who avoided the pitfalls of systematic racism or children who have to wake up before dawn to help on the family farm.

A college’s student population should be multicultural and unique.