Take the case of Asian Americans. Members of this minority group have experienced both de facto and de jure discrimination, and they have played no part in the historical crimes that affirmative action was designed to remedy. Further, D'Souza argues that SAT scores aren't biased, that grades are relevant, and that therefore, his argument is that affirmative action discriminates on the basis of race, and discriminates against an individual in order to produce products from the group. There are many arguments one could make against this. For instance, traditionally, we have given preference to other groups, such as athletes.
Preference is given to in-state students at a state institution.
But this strikes me a little bit as saying that two rights make a wrong. I think a stronger argument is that we don't discriminate, that many factors are taken into account when making admissions. The purpose is to admit students who will succeed, based on a variety of criteria, and race or gender may be taken into account to offset possible discrimination in educational opportunities, or possible cultural or gender bias in the SATs and GREs. In hiring faculty, the point can be made that we are discriminating against a white male when we give preference to a woman, or when we establish a targeted opportunity position for a minority. Here I think the argument against affirmative action is less strong than in the admission of students.