AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: PUBLIC OPINION VS. POLICY
             When Justin Ketcham, a white college student from the suburbs, thinks
             about affirmative action, he thinks about what happened when he sent
             out letters seeking scholarships so he could attend Stanford University
             after being accepted during his senior year of high school.The
             organizations that wrote back told him their money was reserved for
             women or minorities. To Americans like Ketcham, it's a matter of
             fairness. The average white male will claim that it's not fair to
             attempt to rebalance scales by balancing them the other way. Students
             like Ketcham are also more likely to claim that affirmative action is a
             program geared towards curtailing workplace prejudices that really
             don't exist anymore.But when Hillary Williams, a black insurance
             company manager from the inner-city, thinks about affirmative action,
             she thinks about the time she had to train three consecutive white male
             bosses for a job that no one even approached her about filling. To her,
             it's also a question of fairness. African-Americans like Hillary feel
             that there is just no other was besides affirmative action to level the
             playing field in certain businesses.And so the disparity in public
             opinion begins. A racially-divided America creates separate groups,
             which "Affirmative Action issue taps a fundamental cleavage in
             American Society" (Gamson and Modigliani 170)--each with their own view
             of affirmative action on different sides of the line. Government
             attempts to create policy based upon the voice of the people but
             affirmative action seems to present an almost un-solvable dilemma.
             Traditionally, it had been a policy that was greatly scrutinized for
             its quotas and alleged unfairness towards Blacks, but at the same time
             it had also been praised for its inherent ability to help minorities
             gets jobs they deserve but could not obtain ...