"I don't know how one would define an affirmative-action hire. I ultimately do not know what role race played in my hiring."

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Affirmative action is the most important modern anti-discrimination technique ever instituted in the United States. It is the one tool that has had a demonstrable effect on discrimination. No one who knows anything about the subject would say it hasn't worked. It has certainly done something, or else it wouldn't have provoked so much opposition.

— Eleanor Holmes Norton