Thirty-two years ago, I graduated from Columbia College. My class of 700 was all-male and virtually all-white. Most of us were young men of ability, yet had we been forced to compete for admission with women and racial minorities, fewer than half of us would have been at Columbia. None of us, to my knowledge, suffered debilitating self-doubt because we were the beneficiaries of affirmative action--that is, favored treatment on the basis of our race and gender.

Document URL: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/News/foner-affirm-action.html
Last modified: Thursday, 20-Jun-1996 15:27:01 EDT