Volume 43, Number 12 · July 11, 1996
Goodbye to Affirmative Action?
By Andrew Hacker
The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America
by John David Skrentny
University of Chicago Press, 312 pp., $14.95 (paper)
Ending Affirmative Action: The Case for Colorblind Justice
by Terry Eastland
BasicBooks, 229 pp., $23.00
In Defense of Affirmative Action
by Barbara R. Bergmann
A New Republic Book/BasicBooks, 213 pp., $23.00
Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals
by Donald R. Kinder, by Lynn M. Sanders
University of Chicago Press, 391 pp., $27.50
The Future of the Race
by Henry Louis Gates Jr., by Cornel West
Knopf, 196 pp., $21.00
Affirmative action is on the defensive, not least because its defenders are still having difficulty making a convincing case for it. Any program involving preferences means someone will be aggrieved. Most whites resent seeing places allocated to blacks; many men feel they have been displaced by women; some programs bypass native citizens for recent immigrants, causing yet more resentment.
Review, 6232 words
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