More than a decade of affirmative action policy on the part of the federal government has yielded inadequate results. The commonly claimed assumption that blacks are being given unfair and undeserved advantage over whites is examined at length and found unjustified. Bringing together relevant statistics and other data bearing on the effectiveness of equal employment opportunity programs more directly affected by federal laws and regulations, the study concentrates on 3 areas: government employment, federal contractor employment, and employment and admissions in institutions of higher learning. The report demonstrates how dramatic but misleading statistics can be and frequently are cited as indications of how far blacks have advanced in recent years. The report stresses that economic growth has produced a favorable rate of advancement for both minorities and whites, but analysis makes it evident that after a decade of affirmative action policy the increased pace of minority progress is still not fast enough to ensure proportional representation even at the lowest management levels. It is suggested that perhaps disproportionate attention has been focused on the new access blacks have gained to the prestigious white institutions, but the proportion of blacks on campus remains low; they comprised 4.5% and 5.6% of total freshmen enrollment in 1969 and 1970, respectively. (Author/PG)