Affirmative action programs of this sort might be justified on the ground that in a world where discrimination persists, coercive imposition of quotas helps here and now to bring about greater fulfillment of formal equality of opportunity. The quota might exert an effect that roughly counter-balances the opposite effect of continuing unacknowledged discrimination. Here is a stylized example that illustrates how this could occur. Suppose that those responsible for making hires are prejudiced, and this takes the form of (in effect) assigning extra points to white applicants. A white applicant who merits 60 points on a 100 point scale gets assigned 70 points. If we respond by legally requiring the assignment of 10 extra points to all nonwhite applicants, to offset the bias, the hiring officials might unconsciously respond by boosting the scores of white applicants still further, so that the tilt in favor of hiring whites remains intact. In these circumstances, if (a big if) the social planner can estimate what proportion of nonwhite applicants will be more qualified than whites, a rigid quota that requires the hiring of a specified proportion of nonwhite to white applicants can bring about hiring results that do better at achieving formal equality of opportunity than either the policy of letting firms hire as they please or the policy of requiring firms to favor nonwhite applicants by boosting the merit ratings of their applications.