An all-white panel of two professors and a student persuaded the majority of an audience that affirmative action does not truly benefit minorities at last night’s Great Debate in the Tsai Performance Center at Boston University.

The “negative” team faced off against the all-black “affirmative” team, debating the question, “Does Affirmative Action in Higher Education Really Benefit Minorities?” before a crowd of about 200 at the 23rd biannual debate.

University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard Sander, who led the negative side, called the racial make-up of the teams “unfortunate” because it appeared to make affirmative action a “black-versus-white issue.”

Sander argued that the effects of affirmative action extend beyond those who directly benefit from it.

“Affirmative action involves massive preferences which have massive consequences . . . in the students’ academic standards,” he said.

The panelists on the “affirmative” side included Duke University law professor James Coleman Jr., BU Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore and College of Arts and Sciences senior Deon Provost.

The “negative” panelists were Sander, Harvard University professor Stephan Thernstrom and BU College Republicans President Joe Mroszczyk, a CAS senior.

“I thought it would be a great [topic] to do,” said debate moderator Bob Zelnick, a BU journalism professor.

Zelnick said affirmative action is an issue that “goes to the heart of the society,” Zelnick said.

Affirmative action “not only benefit[s] minorities, it benefits society in general,” Coleman said.

“I would argue that the principal justification for such policies is the diffusion of knowledge,” he continued. “Affirmative action is not a remedial device. It is the ultimate goal for public education.”

Affirmative action’s original purpose in 1964 was to ensure institutions changed to include provisions of the Civil Rights Act, Provost said.

“Its commitment is to purge the mind of injustice,” he said. “At the end of the day, it is wrong to ignore the unequal treatment of blacks.”

Mroszczyk said affirmative action “cheapens the educational [output].”

“It tells [minorities] their only value is their race and [they are] not . . . an individual who can compete with whites on the same level,” he said.

Thernstrom suggested the problem goes back to public school education systems.

“[Time] should be devoted to improving Boston and Chicago public schools,” he said. “If the public schools were improved, we wouldn’t need affirmative action.”

Great Debate audience members, the majority of which sided with the “negative” panel, are encouraged to vote based on the persuasiveness of their arguments rather than their personal feelings on the issue.