Description
Book SynopsisA timely defense of affirmative action policies that offers a more nuanced understanding of how centuries of invidious racism, discrimination, and segregation in the United States led to and justifies such policies from both a moral and constitutional perspective.Since 1961, the issue of affirmative action has been a hotly contested legal and political issue. Intended to address our nation''s often horrifying discrimination against Black Americans and other minorities, affirmative action has led over the past sixty years to far greater minority representation across a vast range of industries, government positions, and academic institutions. Nonetheless, affirmative action policies in the United States continue to fall under assault. In A Legacy of Discrimination, Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone, two of America''s leading constitutional scholars, trace the policy''s history and the legal challenges it has faced over the decades. They argue that in order to fully comprehend affir
Trade ReviewIn this brilliant history and reassessment of our still unfinished journey of race, two of America's most perceptive students of that history and its legal dimensions, President Lee Bollinger of Columbia University and Professor Geoffrey Stone, formerly Dean of the Chicago Law School, put the long-simmering affirmative action debate in its urgent current context and reframe that debate in terms more faithful to what is truly at stake. Anyone concerned about our nation's fate must read what these two chroniclers of our past and prognosticators of our future have to say. * Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus, Harvard Law School *
This brilliant and timely book by two of America's greatest educators powerfully resurfaces the original, moral rationale for Affirmative Action: racial justice. It's a startlingly fresh and clarifying book that more than any writing I have seen, roots the discussion of Affirmative Action in basic truths about American history and society. It will change the landscape of these debates, and, as the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, visits this issue yet again, this is the book to read. * Claude Steele, Lucie Sterns Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Stanford University *
A vital text for our national discourse on race and higher education, A Legacy of Discrimination will grant those unfamiliar with affirmative action's history a rigorously clear accounting of its past and current outcomes and instill all readers with a greater understanding of its potential to remedy systemic racial injustice. * Elizabeth Alexander, President, Mellon Foundation *
An important book, one that goes to fundamentals. Bollinger and Stone urge that all of us—including the Supreme Court—should see affirmative action as a legitimate response to a legacy of discrimination. Timely, bold, and terrific. * Cass Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University *
It is not surprising that Bollinger and Stone—two widely-respected legal scholars with deep expertise in higher education—have written a clear and insightful book that lays out a strong case for affirmative action as a much-needed remedy to achieve racial justice. This book is for legal scholars, policy practitioners, higher education leaders, and anyone with an interest in the history and consequences of the legacy of racial discrimination in the United States. * Christina H. Paxson, President, Brown University *
Though a relatively short book, Legacy provides essential historical background to this critical moment in race jurisprudence, making it a great book for learning more about the court, American racism, and affirmative action policy. * Choice *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: The Long Journey to Affirmative Action Chapter Two: Affirmative Action: Cases and Policies Chapter Three: The Unfinished Journey: The State of Race in American Society Today Chapter Four: The Necessity of Both a Social and a Judicial Reckoning on Race Notes Index
