Affirmative action can’t help but distort our democratic values. Consider the institution of special “diversity seats” in the Amherst student Senate. Diversity seats are bad enough. But clever conservatives at Amherst actually managed to wrangle a diversity seat for conservatives. A bad idea, of course, but one that nicely draws out the flawed logic of affirmative action itself. Now the Amherst student Senate has reversed itself and denied the conservatives their diversity seat. Of course the whole idea of “diversity seats” mocks democracy. Under the guise of aiding minorities, a leftist majority tyranny stacks the political deck by packing the Senate with like-minded votes, over and above what a fair election would have yielded. This turns those who oppose representation by “victimhood” into victims themselves. The student Senate and the conservatives alike are caught in the contradiction.