a major difference between affirmative action and nepotism, though, is that the former tars all and the latter just the one involved. It's not so much that the affirmative action admittee is a suspect but that *all* members of his race are suspect,

Why? I've never understood this objection when it's made by people who are arguing that individuals should be assessed on their merits and not promoted as a class. If that's what you believe, why should you then turn around and decide that an entire racial category is "tarred" if a particular individual isn't up to snuff? If you worked in a company where the CEO's incompetent daughter got quickly promoted, would you conclude that "all rich people's children are tarred by her failures"? I doubt it.

And most minority kids aren't "hungry."

That's a metaphorical hunger for success I was talking about, not a literal hunger for food.

By treating people as a class, we invite thinking of people as a class. We actually *do* tend to think the progeny of the rich get ahead because of this, whether true in specific cases or not. Indeed, a lot of people seem to think GW Bush got elected because Daddy had been president, despite the fact that this is a situation where Daddy can't really help all that much. Everyone assumes, for example, that Clarence Thomas got into Yale because he was black. Maybe he did. Or maybe he was just smart as hell.

Fair enough on "hungry for success." But then there really isn't any reason to prefer one color of hungry kid to another.

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