In its modern form, affirmative action can call for an admissions officer faced with two similarly qualified applicants to choose the minority over the white, or for a manager to recruit and hire a qualified woman for a job instead of a man. Affirmative action decisions are generally not supposed to be based on quotas, neither are they supposed to give any preference to

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So what are we fighting about? Mainly, I think, about how to produce a better society. Some of us believe that the best way to achieve a colorblind future is to practice colorblindness now, and some of us believe that colorblindness after centuries of racism will merely lock in white advantage. We need to level the playing field before insisting on a single set of rules.

Affirmative action is different from traditional redistributive programs, most involve spending sums of money. With the old-fashioned programs, you can split differences with relative ease. If we're arguing about how much money to spend to help the handicapped, the unemployed, the elderly or the very poor, you and I might propose different amounts. It's not so hard to agree on a number in between, but you can't s

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