"Affirmative action means that equally qualified workers are then selected to be as representative of the population as possible."
Maybe this is what Affirmative Action means to you, but not to everyone. In fact, the University of Texas is currently at court regarding this very issue, where the university intentionally admitted minority students at the expense of white students who were otherwise better qualified in order to meet vague race quotas.
This is certainly tricky, and obviously a judge is the one to make the final decision for the US, but I'll stick by my interpretation of the Civil Rights Act for now :-)
Obviously, there is always the problem of having a profession where the demand hasn't been met by the supply of skilled workers (like programming!) which takes time before it balances a bit more, and this is where the idea of racial quotas breaks down considerably.
Maybe this is what Affirmative Action means to you, but not to everyone. In fact, the University of Texas is currently at court regarding this very issue, where the university intentionally admitted minority students at the expense of white students who were otherwise better qualified in order to meet vague race quotas.
The case is currently being argued: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_v._University_of_Texas