Holy shit, this thread is annoying. O.o
Okay, I'll sum up my thoughts re: affirmative action and duck out immediately. I do NOT want to be part of this fight. While I think it could be managed better and implemented better, I think affirmative action is necessary because, while it would be nice to judge merely on merit, the trouble is that it ignores the causes of someone having less merit - an african-american who is less qualified because his parents didn't have the money to send him to college due to their own parents being discriminated against deserves a chance to improve his station.
Also, if you judge solely on merit, anyone who's less-than-perfect never has a chance to become better and more qualified, and will never get a satisfyingly-paying job.