"Worse, one of the biggest obstacles that minorities face is a chicken-and-egg problem that time alone doesn’t cure. People avoid professions in which there are

"Worse, one of the biggest obstacles that minorities face is a chicken-and-egg problem that time alone doesn’t cure. People avoid professions in which there are few people like them. This is a hurdle which affirmative action can remove, fast and efficiently." I think this assumption is made by most people but unfortunately simply filling slots based on socially constructed identity labels does not seem to be effective in addressing underlying inequalities. For instance, we have had "race" based affirmative action policies for universities for decades but very limited effect in having those policies translate into balancing income and wealth gaps between socially constructed race groups. In fact those gaps have widened considerably over the past couple decades. I think that people still fail to understand the extent of sub-conscious prejudice and fail to understand that the programs they are putting in place to try to solve inequalities between socially constructed identity groups are actually reinforcing the underlying causes of those inequalities instead of eliminating them.