The Affirmative Action Puzzle
A Living History from Reconstruction to Today
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Urofsky (Dissent and the Supreme Court), a professor emeritus of history at VCU, examines the political, social, legal, and economic ramifications of affirmative action in this perceptive and deeply researched study. Starting with JFK's 1961 executive order requiring government contractors to "take affirmative action" to ensure equal employment opportunities regardless of "race, color, creed, or national origin," Urofsky charts the evolution of the policy from a "soft" program designed to achieve "equality of opportunity" to a "hard" program that set quotas in order to obtain "equality of results." Urofsky traces the causes of the shift to efforts by civil rights leaders, politicians, and business interests to "reverse the legacy of Jim Crow." Though "numbers-driven plan" can be effective, Urofsky writes, they fuel charges of "reverse discrimination" and undermine the idea that minority candidates can succeed on their own merits. Urofsky analyzes the Supreme Court's stance (strict quotas are unconstitutional; "holistic" practices that consider an applicant's minority status among other factors are legal) and tracks how politicians have used affirmative action as a "wedge issue." His evenhanded approach provides essential historical context, but few definitive answers on the efficacy of affirmative action. Readers with a deep connection to the issue will appreciate this judicious deep dive.