Steven Yates

Affirmative action policies are intended to ensure equal opportunity for minorities and women. However, Steven Yates argues in the following viewpoint, affirmative action policies create quotas by requiring that a certain number of job positions be filled by minorities or women. According to Yates, these quotas force employers to hire a predetermined number of minorities and women, thereby discriminating against qualified white males. Even when white employers hire a number of minorities, he contends, they can still face damaging lawsuits if they have not followed all of the strict quota guidelines. Yates is the author of Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong with Affirmative Action, from which this viewpoint is excerpted.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. How do affirmative action policies harm minorities, according to the author"
2. How does Yates define “covert discrimination&rdquo...