Reply #3: When 'libertarians' argue against AA. they nearly always focus on

[TahitiNut]

... a single hiring or promotion decision where (they allege) a less qualified person was favored over a more qualified person solely due to achieving some demographic 'quota' for a protected class. What they completely fail to acknowledge is all of the hiring and promotion decisions preceding that anecdotal "last straw." Thus, I try to point out their failure to consider a whole series of such decisions which, somehow 'accidentally'(?), have failed to identify a single individual in that same protected class who was equally of better qualified for the position. Is it reasonable, I ask, to assume that there was nobody having such qualifications? What does it say about such an organization's recruitment practices that they just happened to overlook or bypass that pool of qualified people? If they claim there's no person in that protected class who's equally or better qualified, then that is a de facto admission of bigotry - always contrary to that person's initial claim of being free of such bigotry.

So, when discussing AA one-on-one, it's essential to escape the deliberately-biased boundaries of a single hiring or promotion decision and regard it as the culmination of a whole series of such decisions. It puts the bigot on the spot.

It should also be realized that organizations in which such issues arise are almost always self-aware - they know they're discriminatory and the anecdotal "last straw" is deliberately planned and designed to torpedo such AA programs with a kabuki of 'compliance.'