Bobert,

Ideally, affirmative action would "level the playing field". However, as implemented in the real world, it is neither fair nor effective.

The company I was formerly in had a period when it would not hire or promote any individual- except women and minorities. This lasted about 18 months.

As performed in the real world, one could never know if a person who was under an affirmative action program was qualified- the program was seen as a "These folks aren't good enough to get the job with competition, so we will give some percentage of the jobs to them regardless." I understand that it is * supposed * to be the selection of minorities that are qualified, but the real implementation was to select any minority, regardless of qualification.