I am familiar with the essays addressing some hardship they have overcome. A blind man could see what it’s for.

The most blatant example of affirmative action that I could find is the University of Michigan’s admissions standards (that generated Bollinger), illustrated by the bar graphs at the end of this article http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/116/articles/bronner2.htm . Note how the standards have been lowered for minority applicants not only by test scores and GPAs, but also by the creation of a fourth category, “Admit to Remedial Program.” One might logically ask why a supposedly top university is wasting resources on any remedial instruction – that’s what community colleges are for. But liberals see a shortage of minority faces in a top university freshman class and immediately (if not sooner) conclude that minorities are not getting a college education (never mind there are community colleges). That is why it is not politically feasible to have a shortage of minority faces on campus, and why college administrators will defy the law to make sure there are “enough”. Consequently, the minority failure rate is high, but that doesn’t matter to the administrators – there will be more minority faces to replace them next year. Needless to say, this isn’t any help to minorities wanting an education, but it satisfies the race hustlers and those who pander to them.

I don’t know what the pro-quota Leftists’ concern is all about or why they are wasting their time fighting it out in court when they can simply ignore the will of the people just like UC did in California after the people passed Proposition 209 and the courts upheld it. Heather MacDonald [politely] makes this observation:

“In 1996, Californians voted to ban race and gender preferences in government and education. Ten years later, the chancellor of the state-funded University of California at Berkeley, Robert Birgeneau, announced a new Vice Chancellorship for Equity and Inclusion, charged with making Berkeley more ‘inclusive’ and ‘less hostile’ to ‘underrepresented minority . . . groups.’ This move is just the latest expression of the University of California’s unrelenting resistance to the 1996 voter initiative, in every way possible short of patent violation. Stasi apparatchiks disappeared more meekly after the Soviet Empire’s collapse than California’s race commissars have retreated after voters tried to oust their preference regime. [Emphasis added]

“The last decade in California shows the power, and the limitations, of the crusade for a colorblind America led by Ward Connerly, architect of the 1996 anti-preference initiative. Without a doubt, Proposition 209, as that measure is called, has cut the use of race quotas in the Golden State’s government. But it has also exposed the contempt of the elites, above all in education, for the popular will. ‘Diversity’ – meaning socially engineered racial proportionality – is now the only official ideology of the education behemoth, and California shows what happens when that ideology comes into conflict with the law.

“When Prop. 209 passed, a few politicians, such as San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, loudly vowed to disobey it.”
Affirmative Action Showdown”
By Heather MacDonald
January 30, 2007
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26670

Not only did the university administration ignore Prop 209, they turned it on its head. To wit:

“What about Proposition 209?”

“The enactment of Proposition 209 in 1996 raised many questions about the status of faculty diversity efforts at the University of California. However, the Task Force found that the non-discrimination requirement in Proposition 209 can be understood as supporting the University’s commitment to provide equal opportunity in hiring, compensation and all other employment programs. Where there is under-representation, the university must take steps to address the barriers that prevent full participation of minorities in academic careers. Further, schools and departments in every field can identify the academic values that are enhanced by a diverse teaching and research environment. Strategies to select and advance scholars with the expertise to foster those academic values are essential if UC is to maintain its excellence as a premier public institution.” [Emphasis added]
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/facultydiversity/executive-summary.pdf

This is EXACTLY what the people voted to ELIMINATE when they passed Prop 209.

The university administration and Willie Brown should all go to jail.

This all is to say that the greatest beneficiaries of AA have been those institutions who “promote diversity.” Of course if this is at the expense of those allegedly being ‘promoted,’ so much the worse for those being ‘promoted.”

Giving someoneone something the merits do not justify gives off a odor that indicates a body somewhere. It appears researchers were closing in on the source of that smell.

In this case it is clear who is hiding the stiff and why. It’s also clear that all the usual suspects are involved, including white guilt, victimhood dynamics, and good intentions.

The irony is the people they are supposedly trying to help are the ones who get hurt. But such is the power of good intentions, which in progressive social justice circles often are the means and end.

And when those ends are all that matter, whatever damage that results in their pursuit is collateral, and attributable to a political enemy.

Minorities have to stop rewarding this behavior by awarding points (or votes) for anything less than real results, real soloutions.

When the architects of progressive social justice schemes fail, yet earn kudos for having their hearts in the right place, they are just encouraged to keep up their idea of the good fight – particularly when it helps purge guilt and strokes their activist egos.

Minorities have to stand up, shed the robes of victimhood provided free of charge by leftist progressive clothiers (who seem to adore how minorities look in them)and accept nothing less than real progress.