Reverse Discrimination

Rich Noonan, a local Fox anchor in Philadelphia, believes he was a victim of reverse discrimination. In 2002, his contract was not renewed and he was replaced by a black man. He argues that the station hired the black man to diversify the news team. The team included three white men and one while woman, but a black man replaced one of the white men.

Without knowing the inner workings of the station it is hard to tell if this really is reverse discrimination or if it is just an annoyed man looking for excuses and money. More established anchors are let go all the time for people who cost less money and do a good job. Noonan obviously didn't think of this. It's also possible that he wasn't as good of a worker. Of course, maybe it was race based and it just happened to be Noonan's contract that was needing renewed.

This seems to be a common complaint. Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hammacher filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan for not accepting them but accepting minorities with worse GPAs and SAT scores. It was highly publicized, even gaining attention in a 60 Minutes episode. Many more people have felt this way, whether they made it public or not.

Is reverse discrimination a problem? I'm sure it happens sometimes, but people seem to overreact. After all the years of oppression and exclusion, whites can handle not being on top constantly. Yeah, personally being the victim would not be much fun, but in the great scheme of things, maybe it's time for the tables to be turned.