Affirmative Action Quotes

Affirmative action is critical to minorities and women in this society… But for affirmative action laws, God only knows where I would be today. These laws and their proper application are all that stand between the first 17 years of my life and the second 17 years.

Some people believe that racism is a matter of feelings and behavior. In this view, a racist is anyone who treats others differently based on race. You can be a racist no matter what your race is. Under another definition, “Racism equals prejudice plus power.” In this view, racism requires social and institutional structures that […]

The Constitution is both colorblind and color-conscious. To avoid conflict with the equal protection clause, a classification that denies a benefit, causes harm or imposes a burden must not be based on race. In that sense, the Constitution is colorblind. But the Constitution is color-conscious to prevent discrimination being perpetuated and to undo the effects […]

The measure of a just society is not whether a demographically proportional share of any group succeeds, but whether an individual of talent can succeed regardless of what group he belongs to.

Here’s what white privilege sounds like: I am sitting in my University of Texas office, talking to a very bright and very conservative white student about affirmative action in college admissions, which he opposes and I support. The student says he wants a level playing field with no unearned advantages for anyone. I ask him […]

Affirmative action is the attempt to deal with malignant racism by instituting benign racism.

I don’t speak about Affirmative Action from an academic sense. I speak about it from experience… I didn’t do it alone… There are those who say that all you need is to climb up on your bootstraps, but there are many Americans who don’t have boots, much less bootstraps. And so, Colin Powell, he believes […]

We must understand, my friends, we must understand that there is a problem for us out there. We must understand the cynicism that exists in the black community, the kind of cynicism that is created when, for example, some in our party miss no opportunity to roundly and loudly condemn affirmative action that helped a […]

We all know, left-right or up-down, that the result of ending Affirmative Action, which we are Hellbent on doing, will be less black faces in colleges, government, management and winners of contract bids.

The proof in the pudding for the need of affirmative action is so many white people bleeding from the ears to get rid of it.