NEVER answer a question with a question.

If playing one ambiguity off against another makes for poor grammar, it makes for even worse public policy. The solutions to society's problems need not be sample, but if government provides no answers, it is no government--or at least bad government And nowhere is strong governmental guidance more important than with burning, divisive social issues such as racial or sexual discrimination, without federal leadership, progress toward equality for all will stagnate in the face of countless local battles.

To the extent that affirmative action programs have helped reverse the impact of discriminatory hiring practices and few would argue that some progress has not been made they have succeeded because of strong federal support for such measures in the face of local indifference, or outright hostility. But the Reagan Administration has not only repudiated its leadership role in advancing equal opportunity. It has also actively worked to undermine strong historical and legal precedents for affirmative action.

What about Blacks and women?

What about white men?

The Birmingham, Alabama police and fire departments didn't look like the rest of Birmingham. While the city was 54 percent Black, and, presumably, about 50 percent female, its police and firefighting forces were almost monolithically white and male. The city was taken to task by the Justice Department for a pervasive "pattern and practice" of discrimination against Blacks and women. The court-ordered affirmative action plan, which became law in 1981, called for numerical goals to ensure the hiring and promotion of qualified individuals from the disadvantaged groups.

But 10 white, male members of the police and fire departments are now suing for reverse discrimination, claiming they were unfairly denied promotions because of the court-mandated plan. They argue that less-qualified women and Blacks were awarded the promotions to meet "numerical quotas" net by the courts. And just last week the Reagan Justice Department, which itself signed the 1981 court decree calling for preferential hiring, entered the suit on the side of the male plaintiffs. Although the department states it does not yet know if the charges to reverse discrimination are valid, it stands solidly behind their attack on quotas. William Bradford Reynolds, assistant attorney general for civil rights, blithely explains: "We always side with those people who claim they have suffered discrimination on account of race."

What about remedial action?

What about seniority?

Like Birmingham's, the Boston police and fire departments were not representative of the population they serve. Finding past discrimination, the courts ordered a preferential hiring plan. All went more or less smoothly until Proposition 2 1/2 slashed city revenues, forcing layoffs in the departments. Under the last-in-first-out policies of the police and fire forces, the bulk of the employees who would have lost their jobs due to the cutbacks were the newly hired women and minorities--effectively negating the effects of the affirmative action plan. When the department altered its seniority plan somewhat to preserve some of the effects of the affirmative action plan, several white officers sued for reverse discrimination. The Reagan Justice Department filled in support of the white officers.

HOW ENCOURAGING that the Reagan regime has taken an interest in affirmative action, but how tragic that it has concerned itself with the wrong side of the coin. Affirmative action is not a discretionary tool to be employed at whim; rather, it represents the best available legal remedy for past and current discrimination that has severely eroded any true measure of equality in the American economy. But in both word and deed, the Reagan Administration has seriously undermined the legitimacy of affirmative action nationwide.

While seniority plans have been considered somewhat immune from affirmative action measures, the Birmingham program now under attack is a typical remedial hiring program. Although the plan does include the use of quotas--the most extreme and most controversial affirmative action method--those numerical goals have repeatedly been approved, and often mandated, by the courts. Typically, they are applied where less stringent measures have failed to bring about change.

The white officers to date have brought at least six legal challenges against the city's affirmative action plan, all of which have failed. They are, of course, within their legal rights to launch yet another assault, but the Justice Department is under no obligation to join them on the warpath.

If the Reagan Administration was under any obligation in the Birmingham case, it can only be to support the city and come down squarely against the rising calls to reverse discrimination that have grossly distorted the purpose and meaning of affirmative action.

In the face of continued widespread discriminatory hiring patterns and practices, it is no wonder that women and minorities find it hard to take seriously the complaints of white males. No affirmative action plan--including Birmingham's--has ever sanctioned lowering standards for women and minorities; instead, they call on employers to speed the placement of qualified female and minority applicants where it has been found that past discriminatory treatment has excluded them from these jobs. Even under the Birmingham program--which has successfully improved the composition of the city's police and fire fighting forces--whites continue to be hired and promoted in greater numbers than Blacks and women.