What is affirmative action designed to do - and what has it achieved?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

59% : Data shows that the rise of affirmative action policies in higher education has bolstered diversity on college campuses.
58% : The concept of affirmative action originated in 1961 when President John F Kennedy issued an executive order directing government agencies to ensure that all Americans get an equal opportunity in employment.
57% :Envisioned as a tool to help remedy historical discrimination and create more diverse student bodies, affirmative action policies have permitted hundreds of colleges and universities to factor in students' racial backgrounds during the admissions process.
51% : In 1969, President Richard Nixon's assistant labor secretary, Arthur Fletcher, who would eventually be known as the "father of affirmative action", pushed for requiring employers to set "goals and timetables" to hire more Black workers.
50% : The end of affirmative action at those state levels shows just how impactful the consideration of race in admissions has been: a UC Berkeley study found that after the ban in California, the number of applicants of color in the UC system "sharply shifted away from UC's most selective Berkeley and UCLA campuses, causing a cascade of students to enroll at lower-quality public institutions and some private universities".
49% : At the University of North Carolina, for example, in a state where 21% of people are Black, just 8% of the school's undergraduates are Black.Opponents of affirmative action, such as the advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions, argue that considering race as a factor in the admissions process amounts to racial discrimination - particularly against Asian Americans.
46% : The number of Black and Native American students has "dramatically" dropped since the end of affirmative action in the state.
41% : In 1998, during an era of conservatism, California voters approved Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative action in any state or government agency, including its university system.
38% : The US supreme court banned the use of affirmative action policies in college admissions on Thursday.

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