"Affirmative Action" is Unfair

Sometimes preferential policies are justified as a form of reparations for a past history of discrimination.  That would make sense, however, only if we ignore individuals and think of races as undifferentiated blocs whose members live forever.  The individual beneficiaries and victims of past discrimination are now almost entirely unknowable.  It is hardly sensible to prefer a person who has not suffered discrimination because a member of the same race or sex suffered it thirty years ago.  Whatever happened in the past, in the present the policy does harm to guiltless individuals and benefits those who have suffered no harm.  At some point, history must be accepted for what it is, history.

Robert H. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, p.238