The rights of minorities and their relations with majority groups in power give rise to some of the most intractable struggles around the world. In the United States, for example, the affirmative action debate, a legacy of the civil rights struggle, pivots around the principle of “blindness” to collective differences in a society whose history is replete with racist and sexist discrimination. Advocates of affirmative action argue that it compensates for past wrongs against particular “kinds” of people -- notably the female and/or black kinds. Opponents argue that it violates the equal protection principle by which rights should be accorded to individual “citizens” rather than groups.