Affirmative action policies should be justified in the US

My opponent asked for some clarification regarding my arguments, so I will provide some here.What my first argument basically boils down to is that, in affirmative action, we are not hiring people based on merit or their qualifications; instead we are hiring them simply because we *have to* by law. We are hiring people simply based on their race instead of things that we should be hiring them upon. This is racial discrimination, which affirmative action was created in order to completely prevent (it was created to prevent people from hiring only white people simply because they are white - a noble idea, but not very practically implemented). The harms of racial discrimination in the workplace are well known, so affirmative action must be negative, at least in this sense. The desirable:undesirable ratio was simply two groups of people; one group that I wanted to hire and had the merit for hiring (desirable) and one group that wasn't good for hiring but still applied (undesirable). There isn't a need to look further into the wording, it should be pretty straightforward.My second argument is basically that minorities do not have self accountability under a system of affirmative action. They do not have to hold themselves accountable for their failures in order to get a higher score on the SAT, for example, because Ivy League schools will admit black students on mediocre SAT scores compared to the average white student's scores to get into the same school. Now, I will go on to respond to my opponent's arguments further. "The reason why affirmative action is in action in our presence is due to the fact that the higher classes discriminated these minorities"My opponent says that the reason that affirmative action exists is to retaliate against centuries-old discrimination... not to ensure equality in the workplace, not to ensure that everyone has a chance in life... it is to retaliate against the higher classes! (These higher classes are, assumably, white men). I ask: is this discrimination present on a large scale in present times? I would argue that we have gone very far from the old days where one can deny work to anyone based on the color of their skin - we even have a President that is black! Now, this isn't to say that racism or discrimination doesn't exist, it always will I believe, but on a large-term scale (which invoking a policy of Affirmative Action would require), there is not any."But should these higher classes be "rewarded" for their past mistakes and discrimination? Not only that but these higher classes have had so many chances for years."They aren't, though. A white person that gets a seat in the Senate doesn't get that seat because they are white - that'd be absurd! A black person doesn't get into the Senate simply because they are black, either - that's equally as absurd in this day and age. I believe that the higher classes (a fancy term for white men, admittedly) *used to* have more chances for years, simply because it was the status quo to only emply these white men. But times have changed, and if you can't see that you really should read the news, because it is so obvious; we have black women in all careers in all positions WITHOUT having to force employers to hire them to those positions."Minorities chances are off the charts due to the count of their race, skin colour, and looks. We are rising their chances by many meters because there are minorities out there who strive for knowledge, but yet was unconsidered just from their looks. For that, this falls."This is an extraordinary claim, and thus it requires an extraordinary source to back it up. There are black people in all sorts of positions worldwide without having to hold their hand through the process, why is Affirmative Action required? All I see is an argument that holds to the premise that minorities (and women are not a minority, but that is for another time) cannot be hired because they don't have any oppurtunities whatsoever, and thus we need to hire more and more of them, even if they are incompetent.RE: Everything said in "reversing past discrimination"What is our moral obligation to present an unfair workplace due to past grievances, and admittedly, grievances that happened well over a century ago (slavery and widespread discrimination)? I'd say that, while we need to recognise what happened in the past, we do not need to elevate the precious workplace in order to make people feel good about bad things that happened in the past. Everything that my opponent is arguing for is based on the premise that we need to recognise past discrimination (I agree with this), try to prevent it from happening (I agree with this), and to prevent a fair workplace based on this past discrimination (I do not agree).My opponent also uses the term "reverse discrimination", but let's be real here: there is no such thing. Discrimination isn't power + privilege or something equally as crazy as the term "reverse discrimination". There's just discrimination, and there are subsets for this thing: racial, sexual, etc. No such thing as reverse discrimination, there's just being a terrible person and not giving equal access to oppurtunities based on some unnecessary thing.