My maternal grandfather died in 2001. He had an eighth-grade education and was one of the most intelligent people I knew. He lived in Puerto Rico his entire life and only left the island to visit his daughter (my mother) and his grandchildren, who lived on the US mainland. He was an astute observer of history and lived for almost ninety years. During that time, he saw the US policy toward Puerto Ricans change. When he was born, Puerto Ricans were occupants of a conquered Spanish colony. When he was three, the US made everyone born in Puerto Rico a citizen, and he saw how Puerto Ricans were preferentially sent to the front lines in both world wars. He saw two of his sons drafted while they were waiting in line to register for classes at the University of Puerto Rico for the Vietnam War. These experiences tempered his worldview. My grandfather told my mother something I’ll never forget. Referring to the US government, he said, “Te dan una galleta para quedarse con la caja.” (They give you one cookie so they can keep the whole box.)  In many ways, affirmative action was weaponized to give some space to minorities but to reserve the rest for the majority. Affirmative action has been challenged since it was first implemented, the most famous case of which is the University of California v. Bakke. Bakke was a thirty-five-year-old white man rejected from the University of California at Davis College of Medicine twice. He claimed his qualifications exceeded those of the thirty-two minority students admitted in the two years he was rejected. The US Supreme Court heard his case in 1977 and found for Bakke, who then enrolled at UC Davis. The court also upheld the use of affirmative action to compensate for the unlawful exclusion of minorities from the medical profession but made racial quota systems illegal.* In 2023, the US Supreme Court ruled on Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard University and the University of North Carolina (UNC) and found that affirmative action programs can no longer consider race in admission.** This was a blow to affirmative action supporters nationwide and became ground zero for anti-DEI laws. Florida and Texas, however, implemented their anti-DEI laws before the SFFA v Harvard and UNC decision.*** The SFFA v. Harvard and UNC decision was effectively the death of affirmative action, although many still believe it’s a good idea.  For most of the 2000s, it was obvious that affirmative action was being dismantled. But few talked about its weaponization. Here are some ways affirmative action was weaponized against the people it was designed to help. ● Stigma: Ever since its inception, beneficiaries of affirmative action have had to defend their presence in higher education. As a beneficiary of affirmative action, my qualifications were constantly questioned, and people would say, “You only got in because you are Hispanic,” or something to that effect. This accusation has accompanied me for my entire career, with the situation of admission replaced by hiring, promotion, etc. I felt insulted because it dismissed my 100–120 work hours a week in medical school, eighty work hours a week in residency, and sixty to seventy hours a week every year since completing residency as if they were worthless. ● Anti-Asian Discrimination: Asian Americans, who suffer from discrimination at high rates, were excluded from many affirmative action programs. As we learned from the SFFA v Harvard and UNC decision, affirmative action programs discriminated against Asian Americans. The court case revealed how there was an “Asian” standard for admission to these schools that was much more stringent than the “white” standard. Asian students were required to have higher grade point averages, more extra-curricular activities, and higherstandardized test scores for admission. The double standard was illegal and immoral, and I’m grateful that someone finally ended this practice. ● Diversity Leadership: In many academic medical centers, there are diversity leaders who serve at high levels, such as senior associate dean for diversity, associate vice president, and vice president. However, these leaders are rarely, if ever, considered serious candidates for dean or president. There may be a handful of senior diversity leaders who later became deans or presidents, and even then, they’ve only been afforded that opportunity at minority-serving institutions. Simply put, diversity leadership is a dead end and is designed to be one. ● Group composition: Affirmative Action programs allow universities and employers to control the group proportions in their institutions. While they claim they’re increasing diversity, there’s always a threshold or a glass ceiling to that number. As my grandfather said, “They will give a little to keep most of it.” While the Hispanic population in the US has grown almost exponentially in the last three decades, growth in medical education has been much slower. Affirmative action principles allow those admitted to be far less diverse than the applicant pool or the general population. ● Women: Women have outperformed men over the last three decades in every academic pursuit. For example, women’s GPAs in college, on average, are higher than men’s (3.20 vs 3.09).**** Yet almost every university in the United States has equal numbers of men and women. The only way this is possible is because institutions have been using affirmative action in favor of men.*****