Affirmative action policies should be justified in the US

Just as a reminder; my opponent has the burden of proof to show that the benefits of affirmative action outweigh the harms. If they fail to do so, the win must automatically go to me. My opponent shows that, even though we have a black president, racism and discrimination are not dead. This is true, 100% totally true, there is nothing wrong with that claim. I even said that discrimination and racism exist in my response! My opponent fails to credit me for this, because if they did so, they would make a deadly mistake; when I said that these things exist, I mentioned that these things do not exist on a wide enough scale to have any real impact that would require affirmative action to be put into the workplace. This is totally true! What I was trying to get at with my "we have a black president" argument is that we don't need affirmative action to make a minority have a high position of power, which affirmative action exists for. "My opponents are complaining," pro says, "that we NEED to discriminate [for affirmative action to exist]". Do you see anything wrong with this quote? I sure do. .. it is advocating for the exact thing that it was trying to pay the damages for: discrimination. My opponent is literally advocating for an equal work environment by promoting discrimination on nothing but the basis of race and sex. My opponent's argument is, essentially: we need to combat systematic discrimination against minorities and women (although this does not exist) by discriminating against the (non-majority) white male, which will help us stop (actually perpetuate) discrimination in the workplace. My opponent asks us to consider the deaths that happened hundreds of years ago when the system was discriminatory. .. and truly, the system was terrible and we lost too many people to a system that didn't allow the person to get ahead based on merit, instead race and sex. Times have changed, this is no longer an issue in modern America (at least at a level which would warrant Affirmative Action). The best way to remember those lost and move forward is to think about what happened to these people and vow to never make the same mistake, while not rewarding people for something that happened hundreds of years ago. By my opponent's logic, we would have to allow the Irish to get ahead in every job, since they were treated on a level equal to colored people at the time, IF NOT WORSE! She also presents a false dichotomy, in favor of affirmative action; allow AA or have a system that actively discriminates based solely on skin color or sex. What's false about this dichotomy is that it's actually just one choice, written as two! AA discriminates soley on skin race and sex, as I have been showing throughout this entire debate. It is also false in the way that it presents that without AA we have active discrimination, but we really don't; at least not a level that would warrant a change in the status quo. My opponent's source for saying that minorities do not get hired as often simply because of their race holds literally no water - if I may quote the source, "their workforces . .. are predominately white, Asian, and male. " What this means is that white and Asian students getting out of college have the exact same opportunities - a minority has the same hiring rate as a majority. The difference between college graduates for black and hispanic graduates getting hired is around 3% of the total population of all graduates - so low of a number, in fact, that it is a statistical anomaly! Later, she says that SAT scores being used against white students and being used in favor of minorities is because the minorities didn't have opporunities in the past. She literally states, "minorities never got chances they had in the past. " This is complete hogwash - the life of your great-great-great-great-grandfather has no bearing on whether or not you are able to get a decent score on the SAT and hold yourself accountable for that score. She later says that even though the grievances (which are lost opportunities for minorities) are centuries-old, she even admits that all of these grievances happened over a century ago in her response, we need to still have them a part of daily life. Come on, we don't need to have SLAVERY as part of our daily life and reward people because a few hundred years ago their ancestors were slaves. That's utterly ridiculous, and that's exactly what she is advocating. Now, let's get into some cost-benefit analysis:Pros - allows for higher diversity (I dropped this claim) allows for centuries-old grievances to be settled (not really, as shown in my refutations) allows for equal opportunities (again, completely refuted! ) Cons - advocates for the very thing that it wants to get rid of (racial discrimination) is inequal for society in the short, and long, term (inequal hiring practices, etc) does not allow for personal accountability (holds the hands of minorities) The last two bullet points for the pros were completely refuted by me, so when weighing cost-harms, these should not be in account. Essentially what we need to consider is: higher diversity v. racial discrimination, inequal hiring practices and a lack of personal accountability. But higher diversity never had any weight applied to it when my opponent was arguing - and debates of policy require weight in order to even be considered. Pretty much, my opponent's entire case is weightless and refuted - in essense, it is not even worth consideration when you weigh the pros and cons of AA.