Affirmative action attempts to remedy the institutionalized hurdles that many non-white Americans encounter. It was introduced to create legal standards and to help circumvent discriminatory or preferential practices. Starting in the 1880s, segregation separated white and black Americans. Institutions such as schools, jails, hospitals, transportation, and neighborhoods all suffered from segregation. Many states reached segregation by enacting Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow Law formally established segregation and was the most prevalent form of discrimination against people of color. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) campaigned to eliminate this legal discrimination. It was not until Brown v. Board of Education that segregation was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (US Supreme Court’s position over time). In this case, the court declared that “separate but equal” is fundamentally unequal, meaning that it is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment rights. Therefore, the chronology of affirmative action can be divided into three phases: firstly, the pre-emergence phase that ended with the adoption of legislative action in 1964 and 1965. Secondly, the emergence phase of affirmative action as a public policy with the adoption of executive orders in 1964, andthirdly, the destabilization and reform period that ensued in 1978.