Quota-procedures distinction offers a politically viable affirmative action compromise

Evidence

I noted earlier a broad band of rough consensus in the survey data - quotas or preferences are bad (the Supreme Court agrees) but extra efforts to identify and train people who have been disadvantaged by race or gender is good (the Supreme Court agrees here also). That is a workable starting point for designing a policy that could achieve many of the purposes of affirmative action without generating so much hostility - if people are susceptible to compromise on this issue. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2019

Categorization

• XREF: The opportunities-vs-preference framing parallels debates in political theory on procedural vs. substantive equality.