Race, Class, and Affirmative Action

Race, Class, and Affirmative Action PDF Author: Sigal Alon
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610448545
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
No issue in American higher education is more contentious than that of race-based affirmative action. In light of the ongoing debate around the topic and recent Supreme Court rulings, affirmative action policy may be facing further changes. As an alternative to race-based affirmative action, some analysts suggest affirmative action policies based on class. In Race, Class, and Affirmative Action, sociologist Sigal Alon studies the race-based affirmative action policies in the United States. and the class-based affirmative action policies in Israel. Alon evaluates how these different policies foster campus diversity and socioeconomic mobility by comparing the Israeli policy with a simulated model of race-based affirmative action and the U.S. policy with a simulated model of class-based affirmative action. Alon finds that affirmative action at elite institutions in both countries is a key vehicle of mobility for disenfranchised students, whether they are racial and ethnic minorities or socioeconomically disadvantaged. Affirmative action improves their academic success and graduation rates and leads to better labor market outcomes. The beneficiaries of affirmative action in both countries thrive at elite colleges and in selective fields of study. As Alon demonstrates, they would not be better off attending less selective colleges instead. Alon finds that Israel’s class-based affirmative action programs have provided much-needed entry slots at the elite universities to students from the geographic periphery, from high-poverty high schools, and from poor families. However, this approach has not generated as much ethnic diversity as a race-based policy would. By contrast, affirmative action policies in the United States have fostered racial and ethnic diversity at a level that cannot be matched with class-based policies. Yet, class-based policies would do a better job at boosting the socioeconomic diversity at these bastions of privilege. The findings from both countries suggest that neither race-based nor class-based models by themselves can generate broad diversity. According to Alon, the best route for promoting both racial and socioeconomic diversity is to embed the consideration of race within class-based affirmative action. Such a hybrid model would maximize the mobility benefits for both socioeconomically disadvantaged and minority students. Race, Class, and Affirmative Action moves past political talking points to offer an innovative, evidence-based perspective on the merits and feasibility of different designs of affirmative action.

Race, Class, and Affirmative Action

Race, Class, and Affirmative Action PDF Author: Sigal Alon
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610448545
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Get Book Here

Book Description
No issue in American higher education is more contentious than that of race-based affirmative action. In light of the ongoing debate around the topic and recent Supreme Court rulings, affirmative action policy may be facing further changes. As an alternative to race-based affirmative action, some analysts suggest affirmative action policies based on class. In Race, Class, and Affirmative Action, sociologist Sigal Alon studies the race-based affirmative action policies in the United States. and the class-based affirmative action policies in Israel. Alon evaluates how these different policies foster campus diversity and socioeconomic mobility by comparing the Israeli policy with a simulated model of race-based affirmative action and the U.S. policy with a simulated model of class-based affirmative action. Alon finds that affirmative action at elite institutions in both countries is a key vehicle of mobility for disenfranchised students, whether they are racial and ethnic minorities or socioeconomically disadvantaged. Affirmative action improves their academic success and graduation rates and leads to better labor market outcomes. The beneficiaries of affirmative action in both countries thrive at elite colleges and in selective fields of study. As Alon demonstrates, they would not be better off attending less selective colleges instead. Alon finds that Israel’s class-based affirmative action programs have provided much-needed entry slots at the elite universities to students from the geographic periphery, from high-poverty high schools, and from poor families. However, this approach has not generated as much ethnic diversity as a race-based policy would. By contrast, affirmative action policies in the United States have fostered racial and ethnic diversity at a level that cannot be matched with class-based policies. Yet, class-based policies would do a better job at boosting the socioeconomic diversity at these bastions of privilege. The findings from both countries suggest that neither race-based nor class-based models by themselves can generate broad diversity. According to Alon, the best route for promoting both racial and socioeconomic diversity is to embed the consideration of race within class-based affirmative action. Such a hybrid model would maximize the mobility benefits for both socioeconomically disadvantaged and minority students. Race, Class, and Affirmative Action moves past political talking points to offer an innovative, evidence-based perspective on the merits and feasibility of different designs of affirmative action.

Place, Not Race

Place, Not Race PDF Author: Sheryll Cashin
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807086150
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
From a nationally recognized expert, a fresh and original argument for bettering affirmative action Race-based affirmative action had been declining as a factor in university admissions even before the recent spate of related cases arrived at the Supreme Court. Since Ward Connerly kickstarted a state-by-state political mobilization against affirmative action in the mid-1990s, the percentage of four-year public colleges that consider racial or ethnic status in admissions has fallen from 60 percent to 35 percent. Only 45 percent of private colleges still explicitly consider race, with elite schools more likely to do so, although they too have retreated. For law professor and civil rights activist Sheryll Cashin, this isn’t entirely bad news, because as she argues, affirmative action as currently practiced does little to help disadvantaged people. The truly disadvantaged—black and brown children trapped in high-poverty environs—are not getting the quality schooling they need in part because backlash and wedge politics undermine any possibility for common-sense public policies. Using place instead of race in diversity programming, she writes, will better amend the structural disadvantages endured by many children of color, while enhancing the possibility that we might one day move past the racial resentment that affirmative action engenders. In Place, Not Race, Cashin reimagines affirmative action and champions place-based policies, arguing that college applicants who have thrived despite exposure to neighborhood or school poverty are deserving of special consideration. Those blessed to have come of age in poverty-free havens are not. Sixty years since the historic decision, we’re undoubtedly far from meeting the promise of Brown v. Board of Education, but Cashin offers a new framework for true inclusion for the millions of children who live separate and unequal lives. Her proposals include making standardized tests optional, replacing merit-based financial aid with need-based financial aid, and recruiting high-achieving students from overlooked places, among other steps that encourage cross-racial alliances and social mobility. A call for action toward the long overdue promise of equality, Place, Not Race persuasively shows how the social costs of racial preferences actually outweigh any of the marginal benefits when effective race-neutral alternatives are available.

The Future of Affirmative Action

The Future of Affirmative Action PDF Author: Richard D. Kahlenberg
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780870785412
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
As the United States experiences dramatic demographic change--and as our society's income inequality continues to rise--promoting racial, ethnic, and economic inclusion at selective colleges has become more important than ever. At the same time, however, many Americans--including several members of the U.S. Supreme Court--are uneasy with explicitly using race as a factor in college admissions. The Court's decision in Fisher v. University of Texas emphasized that universities can use race in admissions only when "necessary," and that universities bear "the ultimate burden of demonstrating, before turning to racial classifications, that available, workable race-neutral alternatives do not suffice." With race-based admission programs increasingly curtailed, The Future of Affirmative Action explores race-neutral approaches as a method of promoting college diversity after Fisher decision. The volume suggests that Fisher might on the one hand be a further challenge to the use of racial criteria in admissions, but on the other presents a new opportunity to tackle, at long last, the burgeoning economic divisions in our system of higher education, and in society as a whole. Contributions from: Danielle Allen (Princeton); John Brittain (University of the District of Columbia) and Benjamin Landy (MSNBC.com); Nancy Cantor and Peter Englot (Rutgers-Newark); Anthony P. Carnevale, Stephen J. Rose, and Jeff Strohl (Georgetown University); Dalton Conley (New York University); Arthur L. Coleman and Teresa E. Taylor (EducationCounsel LLC); Matthew N. Gaertner (Pearson); Sara Goldrick-Rab (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Scott Greytak (Campinha Bacote LLC); Catharine Hill (Vassar); Richard D. Kahlenberg (The Century Foundation); Richard L. McCormick (Rutgers); Nancy G. McDuff (University of Georgia); Halley Potter (The Century Foundation); Alexandria Walton Radford (RTI International) and Jessica Howell (College Board); Richard Sander (UCLA School of Law); and Marta Tienda (Princeton).

For Discrimination

For Discrimination PDF Author: Randall Kennedy
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307949362
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The definitive reckoning with Affirmative Action, one of America’s most explosively contentious and divisive issues—from “one of our most important and perceptive writers on race and the law.”—The Washington Post “A clear-eyed take on America’s battle over affirmative action and diversity.... [Kennedy] goes straight at the issue with fearlessness and a certain cheekiness.” —Los Angeles Times “Compelling.... Powerful.” —Wall Street Journal What precisely is affirmative action, and why is it fiercely championed by some and just as fiercely denounced by others? Does it signify a boon or a stigma? Or is it simply reverse discrimination? What are its benefits and costs to American society? What are the exact indicia determining who should or should not be accorded affirmative action? When should affirmative action end, if it must? Randall Kennedy gives us a concise and deeply personal overview of the policy, refusing to shy away from the myriad complexities of an issue that continues to bedevil American race relations.

The Remedy

The Remedy PDF Author: Richard D. Kahlenberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
In a sweeping and damning analysis, Kahlenberg examines how the rationale for affirmative action has moved inexorably away from its original commitment to remedy past discrimination and instead has become a means to achieve racial diversity, even if that means giving preference to upper-middle-class blacks over poor whites. Such perverse outcomes, he shows, have undermined the moral legitimacy of affirmative action, which is supposed to benefit the truly disadvantaged, not the well-to-do. If Bill Cosby's kids are given preferences in college admissions and employment opportunities while a coal miner's kids are shut out, then something has gone very wrong. But Kahlenberg goes beyond simple criticism to outline how a class-based system of affirmative action would work, and why the objections often raised turn out to be red herrings. Moreover, he pays particular attention to the impact of such a policy on the African-American community, showing that because blacks are disproportionately poor, they would still continue to reap a disproportionate share of the benefits, but without engendering resentment or feelings of injustice within the white community. The problem of race is not going to disappear anytime soon, but The Remedy provides a way to cut the Gordian knot over affirmative action without sacrificing or compromising American ideals.

Mismatch

Mismatch PDF Author: Richard Sander
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465030017
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
The debate over affirmative action has raged for over four decades, with little give on either side. Most agree that it began as noble effort to jump-start racial integration; many believe it devolved into a patently unfair system of quotas and concealment. Now, with the Supreme Court set to rule on a case that could sharply curtail the use of racial preferences in American universities, law professor Richard Sander and legal journalist Stuart Taylor offer a definitive account of what affirmative action has become, showing that while the objective is laudable, the effects have been anything but. Sander and Taylor have long admired affirmative action's original goals, but after many years of studying racial preferences, they have reached a controversial but undeniable conclusion: that preferences hurt underrepresented minorities far more than they help them. At the heart of affirmative action's failure is a simple phenomenon called mismatch. Using dramatic new data and numerous interviews with affected former students and university officials of color, the authors show how racial preferences often put students in competition with far better-prepared classmates, dooming many to fall so far behind that they can never catch up. Mismatch largely explains why, even though black applicants are more likely to enter college than whites with similar backgrounds, they are far less likely to finish; why there are so few black and Hispanic professionals with science and engineering degrees and doctorates; why black law graduates fail bar exams at four times the rate of whites; and why universities accept relatively affluent minorities over working class and poor people of all races. Sander and Taylor believe it is possible to achieve the goal of racial equality in higher education, but they argue that alternative policies -- such as full public disclosure of all preferential admission policies, a focused commitment to improving socioeconomic diversity on campuses, outreach to minority communities, and a renewed focus on K-12 schooling -- will go farther in achieving that goal than preferences, while also allowing applicants to make informed decisions. Bold, controversial, and deeply researched, Mismatch calls for a renewed examination of this most divisive of social programs -- and for reforms that will help realize the ultimate goal of racial equality.

When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America

When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America PDF Author: Ira Katznelson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393347141
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
A groundbreaking work that exposes the twisted origins of affirmative action. In this "penetrating new analysis" (New York Times Book Review) Ira Katznelson fundamentally recasts our understanding of twentieth-century American history and demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner. Through mechanisms designed by Southern Democrats that specifically excluded maids and farm workers, the gap between blacks and whites actually widened despite postwar prosperity. In the words of noted historian Eric Foner, "Katznelson's incisive book should change the terms of debate about affirmative action, and about the last seventy years of American history."

Affirmative Advocacy

Affirmative Advocacy PDF Author: Dara Z. Strolovitch
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226777456
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
The United States boasts scores of organizations that offer crucial representation for groups that are marginalized in national politics, from women to racial minorities to the poor. Here, in the first systematic study of these organizations, Dara Z. Strolovitch explores the challenges and opportunities they face in the new millennium, as waning legal discrimination coincides with increasing political and economic inequalities within the populations they represent. Drawing on rich new data from a survey of 286 organizations and interviews with forty officials, Strolovitch finds that groups too often prioritize the interests of their most advantaged members: male rather than female racial minorities, for example, or affluent rather than poor women. But Strolovitch also finds that many organizations try to remedy this inequity, and she concludes by distilling their best practices into a set of principles that she calls affirmative advocacy—a form of representation that aims to overcome the entrenched but often subtle biases against people at the intersection of more than one marginalized group. Intelligently combining political theory with sophisticated empirical methods, Affirmative Advocacy will be required reading for students and scholars of American politics.

Race Versus Class

Race Versus Class PDF Author: Carol Miller Swain
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780761804123
Category : Affirmative action programs
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Race versus Class traces the evolution of affirmative action policies and explores the issues surrounding the current debate. In addition to providing fundamental facts, the book presents original insights and recommendations for salvaging the policy. Included among the essays are case studies of race-exclusive scholarships, housing policies, and the Head Start program. The book also includes a discussion of the difficulty of measuring public opinion on affirmative action, and of how existing methods might be improved. Sound public policy recommendations emerge from the book's racially diverse group of contributors. Contents: Affirmative Action Revisisted, Carol M. Swain; Racial Classifications, April Chou; Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action: Paradox or Paradigm?, Frederick Vars; Affirmative Action and Public Opinion Polls, Ricshawn Adkins; Philosophical Perspectives, Justin McCrary; Race-Exclusive Scholarships for Undergraduate Education, Jessica Malman; Fresh Start: Redefining Affirmative Action to Include Socioeconomic Class, Jonathon Goldman; Residential Segregation, Racial Discrimination, and the Road to Reform, Cindy Kam; The Head Start Program: Constructive Affirmative Action, Priya Rajan; Index.

Unequal City

Unequal City PDF Author: Carla Shedd
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610448529
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Chicago has long struggled with racial residential segregation, high rates of poverty, and deepening class stratification, and it can be a challenging place for adolescents to grow up. Unequal City examines the ways in which Chicago’s most vulnerable residents navigate their neighborhoods, life opportunities, and encounters with the law. In this pioneering analysis of the intersection of race, place, and opportunity, sociologist and criminal justice expert Carla Shedd illuminates how schools either reinforce or ameliorate the social inequalities that shape the worlds of these adolescents. Shedd draws from an array of data and in-depth interviews with Chicago youth to offer new insight into this understudied group. Focusing on four public high schools with differing student bodies, Shedd reveals how the predominantly low-income African American students at one school encounter obstacles their more affluent, white counterparts on the other side of the city do not face. Teens often travel long distances to attend school which, due to Chicago’s segregated and highly unequal neighborhoods, can involve crossing class, race, and gang lines. As Shedd explains, the disadvantaged teens who traverse these boundaries daily develop a keen “perception of injustice,” or the recognition that their economic and educational opportunities are restricted by their place in the social hierarchy. Adolescents’ worldviews are also influenced by encounters with law enforcement while traveling to school and during school hours. Shedd tracks the rise of metal detectors, surveillance cameras, and pat-downs at certain Chicago schools. Along with police procedures like stop-and-frisk, these prison-like practices lead to distrust of authority and feelings of powerlessness among the adolescents who experience mistreatment either firsthand or vicariously. Shedd finds that the racial composition of the student body profoundly shapes students’ perceptions of injustice. The more diverse a school is, the more likely its students of color will recognize whether they are subject to discriminatory treatment. By contrast, African American and Hispanic youth whose schools and neighborhoods are both highly segregated and highly policed are less likely to understand their individual and group disadvantage due to their lack of exposure to youth of differing backgrounds.