In the UK such affirmative action-style approaches have not been adopted and even their legality would have to be tested.
"Direct affirmative action 1960s style is what we need," he said.
So far, it seems like old style affirmative action that often gave preferences to racial and ethnic minorities in competitive situations is on tenuous grounds.
And, these days, some fear it would be the start of a slippery slope towards American-style "affirmative action".
Public and private universities, many of which employ Grutter-style affirmative action at least to some extent, are watching this case with great anxiety.
(Instead of American-style affirmative action, French efforts rely on the assumption that economically disadvantaged students are also more likely to be ethnically diverse).
He knows the pain of being an outsider and even advocates American-style affirmative action, heresy for many people in officially colorblind, egalitarian France.
Although the Roh government is undecided over whether to support regional quotas, it recently decided to back American-style affirmative action, with hiring targets for women.
But by the time parity became law last year, an overwhelming majority of French said they supported it, in part because its advocates cleverly argued that parity was not American-style affirmative action.
"Labor has never been obliged or bound by a need to stand up for U.S.-style affirmative action, either in principle or in practical terms," said Shamit Saggar, a University of London professor of political science and author of "Race and Representation".
Brazil has never had anything like the Ku Klux Klan, or the ban on interracial marriage imposed in 17 American states until 1967.Importing American-style affirmative action risks forcing Brazilians to place themselves in strict racial categories rather than somewhere along a spectrum, says Peter Fry, a British-born, naturalised-Brazilian anthropologist.
