Race and Representation: Affirmative Action(Race and Representation)

Why has affirmative action become the lightning rod for conflicts over racial inequality in the United States? Have colour-blind legal and political doctrines intensified or ameliorated America's racial divisions? This text focuses on the politically driven decision of California's governor and the Board of Regents of the University of California to end affirmitive action at the university, the subsequent enactment of an amendment to the California Constitution prohibiting the state from engaging in affirmative action, and court decisions in Texas that used the federal Constitution to prohibit affirmative action at state universities, the contributors to this volume assess the late-1990s state of controversey over affirmative action.

Table of Contents:
Part 1: introduction - after Bakke, Robert Post; the racial rhetoric of colourblind constitutionalism - the case of Hopwood versus Texas, Reva B. Siegel; the two declarations of American independence, Michael Rogin; group preferences, cultural diversity, and social democracy -notes toward a theory of affirmative action, David A. Hollinger; individual fairness, group preferences, and the California strategy, Troy Duster; is affirmative action a Christian heresy? J. Jorge Kior de Alva; an affirmative view, Judith Butler; empowerment hazards -affirmative action, recovery psychology, and identity politics, Michel Feher; the regents on race and diversity - representations and reflections, Marianne Constable; Warhol paints history, or race in America, anne M. Wagner; camouflaging race and gender, Barbara T. Christian; diversity of what? Miranda Oshige McGowan; unrepresented, Rachel F. Moran; situating Asian Americans in the political discourse on affirmative action, Michael Omi and Dana Y. Takagi; California's collision of race and class, Richard Walker; casuistry, Cass R. Sunstein. Part 2: affirmative action and epistemology, James Robert Brown; a liberal defense of affirmative action, George M. Fredrickson; how affirmative action can (and cannot) work well, Amy Gutmann; affirmative action as culture war, Jennifer Hochschild; the strange career of affirmative action, David L. Kirp; maintaining diversity at the University of Texas, David Montejano; self-defeating identities, Daniel R. Ortiz; affirmative action, Frances Fox Piven; a personal perspective on affirmative action, Chang-Lin Tien; humility and the curse of injustice, Jeremy Waldron; affirmative action - psychology meets sociology, Alan Wolfe; affirmative action - a long-range perspective, Howard Zinn; SP-1 - resolution of the University of California board of regent adopting a policy "ensuring equal treatment" of admissions; proposition 209 - text of proposed law; AAUP commission on governance and affirmative action policy.

About the Author :
Michael Rogin was Robson Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Review :
"A fascinating analysis not just of affirmative action, but also of contemporary political and social issues affecting ‘race relations’ in the United States."