Affirmative action is decried by some because they view that people are hired based on e.g., skin color or gender, rather than by their skills. This is of course true - this is the meaning of the phrase.
However the wider question is why do these people never complain about discrimination?
Mitt Romney wasn't hired by Bain to run Bain Capital because he was smart; in fact, Romney turned Bain down because he feared he didnt have the skills and worried that if it collapsed, it would reflect badly on him (Romney was no risk-taker, in other words). So Bain not only assured Romney that if he failed, he would get his old job back, he would also engineer a cover story that exonerated Romney. If this were a regular person who expressed doubts about his own competence in an interview like this, do you think he would get the job? Of course not. So Romney was affirmatively hired not because he was black, but because his Dad was a senator. Other such affirmative action applies throughout Society - affirmatively hiring classmates, friends, the sons of friends, and so on. Whether you hire in favor of blacks or Harvard men, its still affirmative action. I'm not meaning the hiring of people from Harvard over someone without a degree here, because thats a matter of demonstrated skill, but hiring someone from Harvard over someone from Stanford because you're part of an old boy network.
Of course you might just be affirmatively hiring whites over blacks, straight people over gays, Christians over atheists. Its still affirmative action.
The only time that people seem to get upset about affirmative action is when it is applied to non-privileged classes.
Isn't that strange?
