The digest is based on a full length report (with the same title) on African-American and Hispanic faculty at predominantly white, four-year institutions of higher education. The full report provides a definitive review of the literature and institutional practice on the topic. Three topics are discussed: (1) how necessary affirmative action really is, noting that it continues to be necessary because of its limited success and because of the pluralistic nature of society); (2) why more progress has not been made in hiring diverse faculty (e.g. lack of accurate availability data, political and philosophical dominance of issues related to merit and standards for qualification rather than equity, and a focus on regulation and compliance rather than on advocacy in affirmative action operations); and (3) what can be done to increase employment opportunities for African-American and Hispanic faculty (e.g. adopting proactive rather than reactive approaches to seeking such faculty, more use of minority networks or vitae banks, and strong leadership among members of the target groups who are already part of the campus community). Contains 7 references. (SM)