Surely Affirmative Action comes into the category of the Plain Bloody Obvious. Sure it can mean the (temporary) abandonments of some quite serious principles, but so do lots of things in life. For those people who have more than one principle(as somebody said some time or other), there will come a time when they have to discard one.
    If you live in a society so stuck with a disgraceful past that you find yourself living in a disgraceful present, do something about it. Dont find excuses to leave it be and hope that time will cure all: it won't, on its own.