The association of quotas with affirmative action is inaccurate, or at least overstated. Aff. Act. can be as small as increased job advertising in minority neighborhoods. The use of quotas is an unfortunate by-product of lawsuits based on the number of minorities present in a given workplace. What these suits failed to consider is that its unreasonable to expect a given workplace to contain a higher percentage of minorities than the surrounding community. If a company is based in an area that only has, for example, 10% minority families, then one would expect around 10% of the workers to be minorities. The lawsuits apparently felt it should be higher, perhaps closer to 40%. Thus, many businesses instituted quotas to make sure the numbers were artificially high, and thus keep the lawsuits at bay.