Of course, there was 350 years of affirmative action before the term even came into use; for example, laws that benefitted whites only - many (white) families got
40 acres and a mule, and then some, IIRC, as the
Untied Snakes grew ever westward, and state and federal
governments passed homestead laws parceling out land. (And need I add that the land in question had Previous Owners?) And in the matter of
college admissions, many utter dolts over the years were given entrée into
university on the basis of the Last Resort: a father or grandfather who was an
alumnus, or invoking the name of an
ancestor who had a building on campus named after him. I've seen such a dolt or two in my day.
I think the general intention for affirmative action, at least in the beginning, was this: if a white male and a member of a visible minority are equally qualified for the job, and the enterprise has a history of hiring only white males, then steps should be taken to choose the visible minority over the white male, until a balance is reached. No harm to the business, since they're getting a qualified person either way, and no harm to the white male, since, in an ever-expanding economy, there will be an opening for him somewhere. My only quibble with the whole idea is when an unqualified person is chosen over a qualified one, but does that happen? I don't know. I bet it happened in the centuries before affirmative action and anti-discrimination laws, when employers were free to choose the unimpressive white applicant (or the boss' mediocre brother-in-law) over the summa cum laude minority applicant.
Affirmative action is one of those easy-to-demagogue issues, and you should probably be wary of those politicians who trot out isolated horror stories to show "the evils" of "reverse discrimination". Your time might be better spent studying the history of discrimination in the US, and its ongoing effects, before trying to sink your teeth into this particular issue. How often does affirmative action come up in your life anyway? If your ox has ever been gored by it, think instead about how much you've benefitted in your life from not being a member of a visible minority - that might put things in perspective. Think hard, and think back a few generations, if need be.