ABSTRACT
When departments undertake faculty searches, one issue almost sure to arise is the role affirmative action should play in the decision. Steps to ensure procedural affirmative action include open announcements of opportunities, blind reviewing, and a variety of efforts to eliminate from decision procedures any policies that harbor prejudice, however vestigial. Whereas procedural affirmative action is uncontroversial, preferential affirmative action is not, and in the remainder of this discussion, the author use of the term "affirmative action" should be understood as referring to "preferential affirmative action". Of course, all three factors might be relevant, but each requires a different justification and calls for a different remedy. Regarding the frequently cited appeal to diversity, the concept itself, if unmodified, is vacuous. Every affirmative action plan calls for giving preference to members of certain groups, but the concept of preference itself is unclear.
