According to my professor, affirmative action has the following pros and cons:

Pros:
1. It is voluntary for a business to use unless a court orders otherwise.
2. It allows a court to order an obviously discriminatory business to level the playing field by hiring at least 4/5ths the amount of minority applicants as they hire majority applicants. For example, if 100 qualified men apply for a job and a 100 qualified women apply for the same job, but the company hires 100% of the men and only 1% of the women, affirmative action can be ordered to be used and the business would have to hire 80% of the qualified women (4/5ths) since they hired 100% of the men.
3. Afirmative Action is temporary. Whether used for 1 year or 15, it never has to be used forever like the Equal Employment Opportunity laws. Affirmative Action is not a law, so it doesn't have to be followed forever.

Cons

1. It is preferential, therefore it clearly discriminates in and of itself. Although Equal Employment Opportunity laws clearly are against discrimination, Affirmative Action is a sanctioned discriminatory method. That's the biggest con it has.
2. It can be promotional, which means a company can use Affirmative Action to clean up its act and decide not to use it when its not being reviewed anymore.

On a personal note (don't put this in your paper), as a minority I believe Affirmative Action hurts way more than it helps. If I have hiring issues, I will use Equal Employment Opportunity laws to fight for justice, not a program set up to give me a boost.

Hope this helps!