[Azred]

Originally posted by Aerich: Merit has to be the primary consideration, of course, but what if two candidates are exactly equal except in racial/ethnic background?

You flip a coin. [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img]

Seriously, that is why personal interviews exist. An in-depth interview will also have the candidate meet several current students and teachers (if a school is involved) or current employees (for businesses), to see how the current people and the candidate react to one another.

To be truly fair, applications should proceed through a double-blind system. Human resources person A accepts the applications, put the qualifications on a standard form, assigns the form a number, and passes the standard forms on to human resouces person B. Person B reviews the forms and chooses candidate numbers for interviews.
In reality, though, affirmative action is not needed. Equal opportunity already exists, thus is doesn't need to be enforced.

In the end, the only color that makes people equal, at least from an economic point of view, is green--money.