Preferences insidiously bolster stereotypes and erode the will to achieve - anything given, will not be strived for.

America’s “Civil Rights” movement began as one founded on the principle of bringing about a color-blind society. In the late sixties, this view was turned on its head, when the goal changed to one of using “minority status” as a “positive” or “affirmative” consideration.

Quotas and race/gender based preferences began during the Nixon Administration and rank right up there with Wage & Price controls as the worst blunders of that doomed administration.

Today, no one makes the case for race/gender based preferences with any heart, in fact, proponents have backtracked, conceding that “it’s not preferences we want, but recruitment and outreach.”

Well, recruitment and outreach programs are fine, but “affirmative action” has never been about recruitment nor outreach. It has always preached “goals and timetables,” a euphemism for preferences.

So, what’s the problem with granting some “considerations,” even preferences for members of those groups who’ve been traditionally excluded from “full participation in American society?”

The Constitution for one, and human nature for another. All programs that illegally grant preferences based on race, gender etc violate the "equal protections" clause of the Constitution.

That's why they're Constitutionally "illegal." Just as neither race nor gender should be "taken into account" in any negative way, they should not be "taken into account" in any positive/preferential way either. That's just common sense.

In NYC a few years ago, the city gave a Police Entrance Exam which had three separate passing grades; 70 for whites and Asians, 65 for Hispanics and 60 for blacks. Of course, many blacks complained of the "stigma of presumed incompetence" that came with being hired off that list (regardless of how well they scored). It's hard to understand the complaint.

Of course preferences come with that stigma...people who've gotten into Harvard and Yale on Alumni preferences have dealt with it for years.

I'm against ALL preferences and all claims of "test bias." We need one set of standards for one nation.

Human nature is another barrier to the success of preference based programs. My father, when refusing to buy me a ten speed bike I wanted as a kid, said, “you’ll never respect what you don’t earn.” The same holds true for preferences.

In the three decades since affirmative action programs became institutionalized, the gap in SAT scores between whites and blacks has only widened. In fact, both Walter E Williams and Thomas Sowell have documented the disaster of race based preferences. In many cases, black students with SAT scores and grades that would make them competitive at a school like Syracuse University and Seton Hall find themselves admitted to M.I.T., Cal Tech or Harvard where they’re scores rank in the bottom 10%. Many of these students drop out of these more demanding institutions, embittered and discouraged.

Worse still, is the fact that preferences fail to address the problem they were designed to redress. The urban poor have not, by and large, benefited from race based preferences, those who do, are usually the sons and daughters of black professionals and middle class white females who don’t need “an advantage” or “leg up.”

This is one of the reasons why proponents rail against transforming affirmative action into a “needs based,” program, one which would benefit those students with the best grades and test scores from poorer backgrounds regardless of race or gender – it would take away an advantage currently enjoyed by only a privileged few.

The truth is that preferences haven’t benefited those they were designed to help and have provided a crutch instead of an incentive to their beneficiaries.

But lets be honest, no preference program has ever provided more benefit to society than harm. That’s why we should also dismantle those ridiculous alumni, athletic and geographic preferences that so many institutions still have in place.

If the concept of “equal protection before the law” has any value, all preference programs should be eliminated.