History and My Bias

In doing some research on the topic of affirmative action, I ran across some very interesting facts and history about the issue. In the article titled "The University of Michigan Reluctantly Honors a Foe of Its Affirmative Action Policies" from The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, it talks of the Washington-based Center for Individual Rights. The group has filed two class-action lawsuits against the University of Michigan. Both lawsuits deal with white students who think that unfair racial preferences "improperly denied them admission to the Univeristy of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, & the Arts and admission to the university's law school. Data from the school's admission office shows that in 1994 only one out of nine white students was admitted to the school with a high school gpa between 2.80 and 2.99 and with an SAT score of 1100-1199. On the other hand ALL black students with these same credentials were given admission to the university. Professor Cohen, a professor of philosophy at the school, was given a copy of an admission's office document that stated "white applicants with a gpa of 3.3 and SAT of 900 should be rejected for admission but minority applicants with the same credentials should be admitted." Less than 5% of white applicants to the law school at Michigan with gpa's between 3 and 3.24 and with a score of 156 to 166 on the Law School Admission Test were admitted while 85% of blacks were. Why are these results so in favor of the minorities?
Affirmative Action also claims to help women as well. The article "Women and Affirmative Action" by Jonathan S. Leonard stated that affirmative action has contributed "negligibly to women's progress in the workplace." He also states that black females have gained far more than white females under the policy. Overall he states that women have gained hardly anything in terms of employment from the policy. The history of the issue makes me wonder if it really does help minorites and women fairly without hurting the employment opportunities of white males.