Originally Posted by djchameleon

One thing that stuck in my head from my Econ teacher in high school is that "Life isn't fair and when you remove the word from your vocab then you'll understand"

Also, if their backgrounds were the same they would still have gotten in but the reason the policy actually exists is to help give ethnic groups that under represented at different schools a chance to succeed. It's also secondary to their academic achievements. If they were the majority's race they would have gotten in but since they aren't without affirmative action in place they would be overlooked.