It doesn't seem as clear cut an issue to me. I think that the more contemporary view of it - that of being tempered with an understanding, as described by artbrooks (above), of access, not favoritism or "handicapping" the system (giving points to those who don't earn them in order to "level the playing field") has been helpful -- and more morally acceptable. But discussions like this one show that it's still not very clear cut as an issue.

Last fall I was watching an episode of "The History Detectives" on PBS. They were doing a segment on trying to uncover the provenance of a golf club that had been in a fellow's family for about 100 years. In the segment they talked, quite matter-of-factly about the country club this fellow's ancestor had belonged to at the time he participated in the US Open. It was a black family.

I saw an informal, "get-to-know" type of interview with a very well-known political figure (if I said who it was the discussion would be side-tracked over personality when that isn't the point). The interviewer was either B. Walters or D. Sawyer (can't remember). This black politician was showing the interviewer the family photo album in which were pictures of her college-educated grandparents.

In many northern States blacks were very vocally against affirmative action. Seems that, from their perspective, they were advancing fine without the "helping hand" even in the midst of unarguable racism.

Other races succeed quite well in the US without a Affirmative Action -- in fact, are facing the reverse, as those of Asian descent are seeing relative to University acceptance in some States. Asians are at least equally different from caucasian as are blacks, and they, as immigrants, enter the country in profound poverty themselves. So, if Affirmative Action is not meant to be restitution for past wrong, how is it justifiable in light of how few other races have ever needed it to succeed in our society?

It seems that the preponderance of people who favor Affirmative Action have an "institutional" rather than pragmatic or market view of the rationale behind employment.

Interesting on-going discussion.