Another reading (Yes I do find democrats equally guilty of fallacies)

“Affirmative Action levels the playing field so people of color and all women have the chance to compete in education and in business. White men hold 95% to 97% of the high-level corporate jobs. And that’s with affirmative action programs in place. Imagine how low figures would be without affirmative action…

This assumes the figures would be very low without affirmation action. It would be reasonable to ask the speaker to expand on this claim, as well as provide a citation for the 95-97% figure.

Despite the enormous gains made by the civil rights and women’s rights movements, women and people of color still face unfair obstacles in business and education. An astonishing 70% of schools are not in compliance with Title IX, the federal equal education opportunity law…

Another claim that might require support ("70% of schools are not in compliance with Title IX").

Affirmative Action programs merely acknowledge that hundreds of years of discrimination cannot be erased in a few decades and still hold women and people of color back. Affirmative Action is the bridge between changing the laws and changing the culture.

Opinion. It should also be noted that what is considered 'affirmative action' is important here. From what I know, it refers to a broad set of schemes aimed at increasing participation of minority groups in a certain organisation or industry. Some of these schemes may be justifiable, others not so.

The radical right wing would have us believe that women and people of color earn less because we don’t work as hard or we’re not as smart. That simply isn’t the case. Laws have changed, but discrimination persists. Affirmative Action only opens doors, women and people of color have to walk through those doors by themselves.”

I think right-wingers will accept the possibility of some discrimination, but don't think it is as pervasive as left-wingers do. For most of the right, pay and representational disparities are the result of "choice", and less to do with women and racial minorities being 'less smart' than whites or whatever.

Most of the racism/sexism debate comes back to disagreements over the scope  and  extent  of discrimination and prejudice. Scope  refers to the things that are considered racist/sexist, i.e. how 'widespread' racism/sexism is in society and how many things are affected by it. Extent  refers to the magnitude, i.e. how 'severe' the racism/sexism actually is.

One can accept the possibility that discrimination exists, but the scope and extent are not such that it is a major problem, thus affirmative action programs are not justified - "hundreds of years of discrimination" aren't  holding minority groups back. 

Alternatively, one could insist that the long-term effects of oppression have created social forces that, although now covert, continue to marginalise people to this day and prevent them from competing on equal footing. To correct this, it is necessary to give them advantages in the meantime.

The debate continues!

I don't have citations in fact these are just quotes coming from scholarly people who like to debate these things. I am not 100% this is factual but I am just trying to see what other people have to comment on these things. I see this stuff online (which means it can be fake) and just want to see the fallacies people spot in these statements. This came from a pro-con website. I just appreciate people like you and other scholarly people picking apart these statements. Other things I've posted have been printed in books or articles.

I know, it's what I would say to the people making these claims. 

By all means, keep these questions coming. It's great to log on and see new ones :)

I wrote something about Ben Shapiro? It seemed to have been taken down? Is he a contributor to the site or something?

Are you sure you didn't press cancel by mistake, as I sometimes do?