About 250 students, many of whom were minority students, filled the Sun Room Wednesday night in the Memorial Union to see Michael Dyson and Dinesh D’Souza face off in a debate about the merits of the affirmative action.

Dyson, who argued for the preservation of affirmative action until a better solution is found, is director of the Institute of African-American Research at the University of North Carolina.

D’Souza, against the continuation of affirmative action as reverse discrimination, was a White House domestic policy analyst for the Reagan administration.

D’Souza said the debate focuses on “the central conflict between two principals: merit of the equality of rights for individuals…and equality of results and representation.”

“There is no direct competition across racial lines,” D’Souza said. The college simply takes the best of each race.

The reason for this, D’Souza said, is that if students were admitted completely based on merit, 90 percent of the student body would comprise of white and Asian students.

They are “sacrificing the merit claims of the individual at the alter of group representation,” he said.

Dyson, on the other hand, focused more on history in what he referred to as “this United States of Amnesia.”

“Black people were conceived to be less than human,” he said.

After a generation of affirmative action, Dyson pointed out, white men still dominate society.

He said 97 percent of managerial jobs are still held by white men.

“My personal criticism is that [affirmative action] hasn’t gone far enough,” he said.

Dyson pointed out the debate about affirmative action is really about people’s lives and their struggles. “If I’m hurting and I’ve got something to help me until the real help arrives, I’m not going to throw it away because it isn’t perfect,” he said.

“There were many things going on during the debate at different levels —the intellectual level and the more rash, in your face level,” said Anthony Usera, a junior in sports medicine.

The debate was sponsored by the Diversity Steering Committee, the Multicultural Action Group, the Committee on Lectures and the Government of the Student Body.