Wolfgang, we (in the US) have an interesting thing commonly referred to as "self-identification"...that is, you are what you think of yourself as being. I don't think there are percentages in use any more (except for Indians...and that's their choice), although it was once a normal practice . I remember a famous (at the time) case in the state of Louisiana in which a socialite (US code for rich White woman) was discovered to be 1/128 Black and was suddenly kicked out of all the organizations she belonged to...this was back in the bad old days, of course. "Hispanic" is another group that often has affirmative action programs available to it, but this term is more vague than you'd think. Legally, it means people who are from, or descended from, the Spanish speaking parts of the Old and New World. A rich Spaniard is Hispanic, but a poor Brazilian (who speaks Portuguese) is not. A person named Richardson, whose mother was Hispanic, is considered Hispanic (that would be the governor of New Mexico), but a woman whose married name is Gomez is not, unless she is of Spanish descent herself.

Asians, as a "race", are usually not eligible for affirmative action...mostly because they do very well on their own...but there are exceptions for individual groups such as the Hmong. Indians, aka "Native Americans," are also eligible, and they have a specific legal priority, called the Indian Preferance Act, for positions in the Federal government in those agencies that deal directly with Indian issues (Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Service, etc). The individual Indian nations/tribes define their own membership; they normally use percentages, but there is little consistency from one to another. It isn't impossible for a person to be 100% Indian by ancestry, but to have insufficient lineage in any specific tribe to be a member.

As Susan says, the best AA programs are those that eliminate their own reasons for existance. Those for women in entry level professional positions are being, or have been, phased out. The emphasis has shifted to the "glass ceiling," which is the term used to describe the problem women have in moving past mid- and into upper management. As members of minority groups move into the level of employment at which they select those at the next lower level, the problem...and the need...will disappear. And, to anticipate the next comment, in over 20 years as a Human Resources professional, the only people who I encountered who made their job selections based upon ethnicity, race or sex were white males. Perhaps those who have been the subjects of prejudice are less likely to be the perpretrators of it.