In the context of the evolution of affirmative action at the national and state levels, this study offers an empirical account of the citizens' movement in California that successfully resulted in the passage of a constitutional amendment to abolish such preferences in public education, public employment, and public contracting. It describes how the concept of affirmative action was transmuted into quotas and set-asides even in those situations where there was no credible evidence of past discrimination. This process was aided by Presidential Executive Orders as well as by some Supreme Court decisions which, until the late 1980s, failed to provide clear parameters of compensatory versus preferential actions. The California movement arose to reassert the original vision of equality as contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Raza, Anderson, and Custred, who have studied the historical development of the phenomenon and have witnessed its actual operation, lift the curtain of secrecy that surrounds such preferences. This book challenges the notion that affirmative action is a benign and temporary measure that simply provides a helping hand to those who are disadvantaged. There is ample evidence of the institutionalization of preferences that generally provide advantages to those who could otherwise compete on their own merits. Such unfair competitive advantages, provided by government agencies and public educational institutions have neither moral nor political majority support; however, they continue to exist through pressure of political interest groups, liberal political ideology, and entrenched bureaucrats who administer the system. Quite contrary to some people's thinking, the system of preferences may no longer be considered either permanent or necessary.

Cohen and Sterba, two contemporary philosophers in sharp opposition, debate the value of affirmative action and racial preference. They defend thier views with analysis and commentay on landmark cases - including the decisions of the United States Supreme Court and the University of Michigan admissions cases, Gratz and Grutter.

In 2006, Michigan voters banned affirmative action preferences in public contracting, education, and employment. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) vote was preceded by years of campaigning, legal maneuvers, media coverage, and public debate. Ending Racial Preferences: The Michigan Story relates what happened from the vantage point of Toward A Fair Michigan (TAFM), a nonprofit organization that provided a civic forum for the discussion of preferences. The book offers a timely 'inside look' into how TAFM fostered dialogue by emphasizing education over indoctrination, reason over rhetoric, and civil debate over protest. Ending Racial Preferences opens with a review of the campaigns for and against similar initiatives in California, Florida, Washington, and the city of Houston. The book then delivers an in-depth historical account of the MCRIDfrom its inception in 2003 through the first year following its passage in 2006. Readers are invited to decide for themselves whether affirmative action preferences are good for America. Carol M. Allen reproduces the remarks delivered at a TAFM debate, along with a compilation of pro and con responses by 14 experts to 50 questions about preferences. This book will be of interest to those working in the fields of public policy and state politics.

A rich, multifaceted history of affirmative action from the Civil Rights Act of 1866 through today’s tumultuous times From acclaimed legal historian, author of a biography of Louis Brandeis (“Remarkable” —Anthony Lewis, The New York Review of Books, “Definitive”—Jeffrey Rosen, The New Republic) and Dissent and the Supreme Court (“Riveting”—Dahlia Lithwick, The New York Times Book Review), a history of affirmative action from its beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to the first use of the term in 1935 with the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) to 1961 and John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925, mandating that federal contractors take “affirmative action” to ensure that there be no discrimination by “race, creed, color, or national origin” down to today’s American society. Melvin Urofsky explores affirmative action in relation to sex, gender, and education and shows that nearly every public university in the country has at one time or another instituted some form of affirmative action plan--some successful, others not. Urofsky traces the evolution of affirmative action through labor and the struggle for racial equality, writing of World War I and the exodus that began when some six mil­lion African Americans moved northward between 1910 and 1960, one of the greatest internal migrations in the country’s history. He describes how Harry Truman, after becoming president in 1945, fought for Roosevelt’s Fair Employment Practice Act and, surprising everyone, appointed a distinguished panel to serve as the President’s Commission on Civil Rights, as well as appointing the first black judge on a federal appeals court in 1948 and, by executive order later that year, ordering full racial integration in the armed forces. In this important, ambitious, far-reaching book, Urofsky writes about the affirmative action cases decided by the Supreme Court: cases that either upheld or struck down particular plans that affected both governmental and private entities. We come to fully understand the societal impact of affirmative action: how and why it has helped, and inflamed, people of all walks of life; how it has evolved; and how, and why, it is still needed.

This guide to the literature presents 451 descriptions of books, reports and articles dealing with all aspects of affirmative action including: Race relations; Economic aspects; Reverse discrimination; Preferences; Affirmative Action programs: Public opinion; Court decisions; Education and many more. Complete author and subject indexes are provided.

Available in paperback for the first time, this milestone work offers an in-depth treatment of all aspects of the discipline and practice of social policy globally. Supported by a distinguished international advisory board, the editors have compiled almost 900,000 words across 734 entries written by 284 leading specialists to provide authoritative coverage of concepts, policy actors, welfare institutions and services along a series of national, regional and transnational dimensions. Also included are biographical entries on major policy makers and shapers. The editors have particularly striven to provide strong coverage of differing geographical and cultural traditions so that the variety of social policy, as both an academic discipline and a domain of governance, is reflected. Contributors draw in and make the necessary connections with social policy's associated disciplines to provide a rich picture of this vast and highly diverse field. Comprehensive and authoritative, the Encyclopedia has sought to open up rather than to foreclose the numerous areas in which there is on-going research, debate and, sometimes, serious disagreement and divergence in theory and practice. To this end, entries attempt to introduce a core or common ground of understanding before moving on to a wider discussion of debates regarding different conceptual and geographical approaches. The whole is integrated by cross-referencing and each entry includes a bibliography for further reading. There is a full index. The International Encyclopedia of Social Policy provides the most substantial mapping of the international study and practice of social policy to date and will stand as a vital storehouse of knowledge for many years to come.

This book offers eight clear-sighted essays critical of racial “diversity” preferences in American higher education. Unlike more conventional books on the subject, which are essentially apologies for racial reverse discrimination, this volume forthrightly exposes the corrosive effects of identity politics on college and university life. The fact-filled and hard-hitting chapters are by Heather Mac Donald, Peter N. Kirsanow, Peter W. Wood, Lance Izumi and Rowena Itchon, John Ellis, Carissa Mulder, and the editors Gail Heriot and Maimon Schwarzschild.