There is a compelling national interest in eradicating poverty and disadvantage. The one evil endangers society's health and stability; the other constricts its performance and growth. Poverty and disadvantage not only inflict suffering and humiliation on masses of individuals, but also deprive the nation of the energies and talents of its full population. The complex but ultimately rewarding challenge of engaging these twin evils remains an enduring theme on the Ford Foundation agenda.

Here, as in many other countries, there is an unfair distribution of poverty and disadvantage based primarily on visible and unchangeable marks of human differences, especially race and gender. Over the centuries, such discrimination has been condoned by custom and enshrined in law. The civil rights movement has in large measure been directed toward the elimination of such discrimination and its legacy. Among the countermeasures that have evolved as our efforts to eliminate race- and gender-based discrimination have intensified is an array of corrective practices and policies subsumed under the popular label "affirmative action."

Knowledgeably and sensitively applied, affirmative action measures enhance the legitimacy and effectiveness of all institutions. Because we live in an immensely diverse country, we must ensure that our institutions are responsive to the concerns and aspirations of all who constitute that diversity. Like the nation as a whole, businesses, universities, and foundations should reflect in their employment and enrollment a broad span of persons of diverse origin and heritage. To do so affirms our commitment to a united nation, endowed not only with formal freedoms but also with open corridors to access and opportunity.

Inevitably, some of these remedial efforts are controversial. They encounter resistance from several quarters, including some who object in principle to the implications of group-based remedies, some who have grown accustomed to the unearned benefits of past systems of inequality, and some who believe special treatment stigmatizes the individual beneficiaries. Moreover, affirmative action measures are innovative and may not, in all cases, be well crafted or aptly applied. And a degree of discouragement has crept in. Despite our efforts thus far, too many of our citizens continue to slip away from productive, fulfilling, and contributing lives into self-destructive, socially expensive behavior. The discouragement is understandable. We have not yet found the way to generate rigorous and patiently sustained efforts by all of our institutions and citizens toward correcting this overriding national problem. But we must proceed. In spite of resistance and disappointments, there is widespread agreement that it is an extension of our democratic heritage to do so. The difficulties notwithstanding, we must devote at least as much energy, determination, and imagination to building systems of equality as were devoted to building systems of inequality in the past. For