Born of the civil rights movement three decades ago, affirmative action calls for minorities and women to be given special consideration in employment, education and contracting decisions. Institutions with affirmative action policies generally set plans for increased diversity so they use recruitment, set-asides and preference as ways of achieving those goals. These companies have it all planned out and are helping diminish discrimination against minorities and women.
             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 unqualified candidates, and they are not supposed to harm anyone through "reverse discrimination" and to me, it is not harming anyone but more so helping others.
             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.
             I remember when black quarterbacks were a rarity in the National Football League – when the most talented collegiate passers were, if they were black, switched to defensive back or running back or something of that nature. Then a couple of coaches broke the mold and brought more. What is true is that there is finally a reason for young black athletes to believe they can go as far, at any position, as their talent takes them.
             Affirmative action is different from traditional redistributive programs, most involve spending sums of money. With the
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