Very interesting reading. Despite a very impressive post by Nerd my basic sympathies are with Nicole's position. Affirmative action in my eyes is at best a crutch for a short period. And it takes the pressure away from both sides. A black student/pupil may say to herself 'I'm already good enough with my B. Together with the twenty points I'm on the safe side.' And the white community/government might think 'Look, why should we invest all that money necessary to level the field. Let's go the cheap way and just award them 20 points and go on with the present politics.'

In Germany, the main issue is gender, of course. We have now near to perfect laws to ensure that women have at least equal (and in theory: better) opportunities to get a (state paid) job (in practice, that just means it involves a bit more of paper work if you want to hire a man instead of a woman also applying). That was the action that did not cost any money except for the printing of the law. Anything which really would change the situation was avoided due to the costs involved: No good support for women/families with a baby, no whole-day nurseries to allow women to work even with a small child, no real incentive for men to stay home for a while, no compensation for the loss of pension for family care time (for instance, I shall loose some percent of my pension for staying home with my young child, same as my wife will),...

The financial risk of pregnancy time-out is still fully with the employer. Women are still considered a risk to hire in too many positions. A part of that 'risk' rests only in the (male) employers' perception, another part is real. To lower that risk costs money. Our governments prefer to produce affirmative action laws that cost nothing and can be changed quickly if needed.

I end with a short true story which shows that colour/gender/etc blind selection can have unforseen positive consequences. The Munich philharmonists were a male only orchestra. As it happened, the members of the orchestra always selected male applicants for the free positions. They just 'were the best'. Then someone had the idea that the unnamed applicants played behind a curtain so that no prejudices (like I know him and like him) could influence the selection. That was the first time a woman was selected. They did the curtain procedure once more and that was the second time a woman was selected.

Wolfgang