Instead, they seek to reverse hundreds of years of discrimination against minorities and women by giving them better educations, better jobs and the economic opportunities which they have been denied for so long. Over the past 30 years, affirmative action programs have helped minorities and women make tremendous strides in education and the workforce, while at the same time bolstering their position as equal members of American society. While opponents of affirmative action may claim that it has outlived its purpose, any serious look at America's classrooms and boardrooms quickly dispels such myths. Discrimination, though not as overt as it was 30 years ago, is still a pervasive part of American society. Women are still routinely paid less than their male counterparts, and top-level women managers are scarce.
Affirmative action continues to be a powerful tool in fighting such blatant inequality.
Court challenges have thus far proved unsuccessful, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. While the full effect will not be known for several years, there have already been severe drops in minority applications and enrollment at the state's prestigious University of California graduate schools. For instance, Boalt Law School in Berkeley, California had one black student out of 270 in its 1997 freshman class. Black applicants to the state's university system fell 8.2 percent, Hispanic applicants fell 3.7 percent and Native American applicants fell 3.7 percent. Although the affirmative action ban has yet to go into effect for undergraduate programs, minority students are clearly reluctant to apply to a school system that fails to honor diversity in its admissions process.