It makes the haters hate more, but who cares about them anyway. It opens people's eyes in a positive way when done correctly.

No it does the exact opposite, while weakening the quality of work being done.

No. It is discrimination.

No, it creates more discrimination. Now before I answer, I'm just being honest, and saying what others are too afraid to say in fear of being accused of racism/sexism, accuse away if you want, but again, I'm just being honest. White men are the only people who do not "benefit" from AA, it is in place, so we're told, to prevent anyone, apart from white men, being held back in their chosen profession due to discrimination of any sort, be it sexism or racism. But there's the problem right away, it's assumed that non-whites and women are held back, and that something should be done about it. Now if there are laws in place to prevent certain people doing certain jobs because of how they're born, then obviously that's wrong, but it's also wrong to employ people just to "make up the numbers", laws against discrimination, yes, laws to allow discrimination, no. This is a hypothetical situation, so touch wood it doesn't happen, but imagine your child needs emergency surgery, and you're in the unusual position of choosing the person who performs the surgery, all you know is that they're surgeons, and you get to choose from a black guy, a woman, a Pakistani, and a white man. Now they're all qualified, but one of them is different from the rest, can you spot the difference? It's the white man, he is the only one who you can be sure must have got his job on merit, but can you, in your most honest moment, be as sure that the others earned their job on merit, or did they tick the right boxes to fill a quota? You can't be sure, because of AA, not because you're narrow-minded, racist or sexist, but because you're using your common sense, and it tells you that only one of them, going on the odds, would have to have earned their job on merit, the rest probably did too, but that's the thing you can't be sure of, because of AA. I don't think it's fair that every women and non-white person has their ability questioned, whether it's out in the open or under people's breaths, their ability gets questioned, and it's not fair, but it's because of AA.