hypothetical situation: a new congressional represenative proposes a bill to create federal agricultural loans that would be availible to women or non-white farmers: no white males are allowed to apply. When the proposal is critisized as discrimination, the representative points out that for decades the U.S. department of agriculture has loaned out money to farmers, almost all of that money has gone to white males and despite a law suit showing a longstanding pattern of discrimination against women and persons of color the situation ha snot substantially changed. the lawmaker argues that this sort of discrimination is necessary to counteract the many years of past discrimination