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[There's a lot to be said against Affirmative Action, but employers who downgrade a minority college grad based on imagined benefits of Affirmative Action throughout a college career are being unfair and are ignorant of the system.]

Yes, they are.

I hope that I didn't imply to anyone that I condoned this, or that I thought most people would, but it is certainly happening and it's an unintended (and unavoidable) consequence of AA.

I have also seen the bitterness and sometimes anger and occasionally hatred that is directed toward black students because of the perceptions that accompany affirmative action, as well as the same negative feelings from black students toward whites about how whitey is keeping them down.

I can't help but think that all of this racial baggage could be reduced to irrelevance, instead it's being increased and amplified for the furtherance of a political program.

"I have also seen the bitterness and sometimes anger and occasionally hatred that is directed toward black students because of the perceptions that accompany affirmative action, as well as the same negative feelings from black students toward whites about how whitey is keeping them down."

See Glenn Loury's excellent work on this. He argues that, in the context of affirmative action, there are three categories of minority college/job applicants: (1) those who would get in without affirmative action, (2) those who won't get in either way, and (3) those who would get in only because of affirmative action.

Loury's argument was that affirmative action has led most whites to believe that all minorities belong to category number 3 -- meaning, for one thing, that all or almost all minorities at good colleges didn't really deserve it, and for another, that pretty much any minority member can get into whatever school he wants as a result of his race. Both of those assumptions are wrong, Loury said, but the resentment was hurting blacks more than affirmative action was helping them.

Full disclosure: Loury has abandoned his opposition to affirmative action since making these arguments. But his original thesis is right on, in my judgment and experience.