  In contention was the nature of those “goals” and “timetables” imposed on every contractor by Revised Order No. 4. Weren’t the “goals” tantamount to “quotas,” requiring institutions to use racial or gender preferences in their selection processes? Some answered “no” (Ezorsky 1977, 86).  Properly understood, affirmative action did not require (or even permit) the use of gender or racial preferences.  Others said “yes” (Goldman 1976, 182–3). Affirmative action, if it did not impose preferences outright, at least countenanced them.  Among the yea-sayers, opinion divided between those who said preferences were morally permissible and those who said they were not.  Within the “morally permissible” set, different writers put forward different justifications.