In the wake of the black civil rights movement, other disadvantaged groups of Americans began to make headway--Latinos, women, Asian Americans, and the disabled found themselves the beneficiaries of new laws and policies--and by the early 1970s a minority rights revolution was well underway. In the first book to take a broad perspective on this wide-ranging and far-reaching phenomenon, John D. Skrentny exposes the connections between the diverse actions and circumstances that contributed to this revolution--and that forever changed the face of American politics. Though protest and lobbying played a role in bringing about new laws and regulations--touching everything from wheelchair access to women's athletics to bilingual education--what Skrentny describes was not primarily a bottom-up story of radical confrontation. Rather, elites often led the way, and some of the most prominent advocates for expanding civil rights were the conservative Republicans who later emerged as these policies' most vociferous opponents. This book traces the minority rights revolution back to its roots not only in the black civil rights movement but in the aftermath of World War II, in which a world consensus on equal rights emerged from the Allies' triumph over the oppressive regimes of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and then the Soviet Union. It also contrasts failed minority rights development for white ethnics and gays/lesbians with groups the government successfully categorized with African Americans. Investigating these links, Skrentny is able to present the world as America's leaders saw it; and so, to show how and why familiar figures--such as Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and, remarkably enough, conservatives like Senator Barry Goldwater and Robert Bork--created and advanced policies that have made the country more egalitarian but left it perhaps as divided as ever.
Affirmative action has been fiercely debated for more than a quarter of a century, producing much partisan literature, but little serious scholarship and almost nothing on its cultural and political origins. The Ironies of Affirmative Action is the first book-length, comprehensive, historical account of the development of affirmative action. Analyzing both the resistance from the Right and the support from the Left, Skrentny brings to light the unique moral culture that has shaped the affirmative action debate, allowing for starkly different policies for different citizens. He also shows, through an analysis of historical documents and court rulings, the complex and intriguing political circumstances which gave rise to these controversial policies. By exploring the mystery of how it took less than five years for a color-blind policy to give way to one that explicitly took race into account, Skrentny uncovers and explains surprising ironies: that affirmative action was largely created by white males and initially championed during the Nixon administration; that many civil rights leaders at first avoided advocacy of racial preferences; and that though originally a political taboo, almost no one resisted affirmative action. With its focus on the historical and cultural context of policy elites, The Ironies of Affirmative Action challenges dominant views of policymaking and politics.
We are living in an era of veritable STEM obsession. Not only do tech companies dominate our cultural imagination of American enterprise and financial growth, we urgently need science-based solutions to impending crises. As a society, we have poured enormous resources into cultivating young minds for STEM careers. The US sponsors 209 distinct STEM education programs in 13 different federal agencies at a cost of more than $3 billion. This spending is on top of countless initiatives from philanthropic foundations and corporate giving. And yet, we are facing a STEM worker crisis. In this project, sociologist John D. Skrentny asks, if we're investing so much in STEM education, why are as many as 75% of graduates with STEM degrees opting out of STEM careers? The problem is not education, he argues, but the available jobs. Skrentny aims to bring a reality check to America's growing dedication to STEM education. Each chapter highlights an aspect of STEM work culture that drives away bright minds, ranging from workplace culture and "burn and churn" management practices, to lack of job security, to the constant need for training on new innovations, to the racism and sexism that exclude non-white and Asian people and women. Skrentny shows that if we have any hope of crafting science-based solutions to many of our most urgent societal issues, we have to change the way we're treating these workers on whom our future depends"--
A provocative new approach to race in the workplace What role should racial difference play in the American workplace? As a nation, we rely on civil rights law to address this question, and the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1964 seemingly answered it: race must not be a factor in workplace decisions. In After Civil Rights, John Skrentny contends that after decades of mass immigration, many employers, Democratic and Republican political leaders, and advocates have adopted a new strategy to manage race and work. Race is now relevant not only in negative cases of discrimination, but in more positive ways as well. In today's workplace, employers routinely practice "racial realism," where they view race as real—as a job qualification. Many believe employee racial differences, and sometimes immigrant status, correspond to unique abilities or evoke desirable reactions from clients or citizens. They also see racial diversity as a way to increase workplace dynamism. The problem is that when employers see race as useful for organizational effectiveness, they are often in violation of civil rights law. After Civil Rights examines this emerging strategy in a wide range of employment situations, including the low-skilled sector, professional and white-collar jobs, and entertainment and media. In this important book, Skrentny urges us to acknowledge the racial realism already occurring, and lays out a series of reforms that, if enacted, would bring the law and lived experience more in line, yet still remain respectful of the need to protect the civil rights of all workers.
A new ethnic order has emerged in the United States. The growing number of Latinos and Asians has rendered the old black-and-white binary obsolete. And yet, political pundits and commentators on both the left and the right continue to overlook the changing face of discrimination and opportunity in today's new multiethnic, multiracial America. With Color Lines, John David Skrentny brings us a collection of essays that reexamines the role of affirmative action and civil rights in light of this important shift in American demographics. The book explores issues of public policy, equal opportunity, diversity, multiculturalism, pathways to better work and higher learning, and attempts in countries outside the United States to protect minority civil rights. Combining perspectives from specialists in fields as diverse as sociology, history, political science, and law, Color Lines is a balanced and broad-ranging guide for anyone interested in civil rights policy and the future of ethnic relations in America. Contributors: Erik Bleich Lawrence D. Bobo Frank Dobbin John Aubrey Douglass Hugh Davis Graham Kyra R. Greene Erin Kelly George R. La Noue Jennifer Lee Michael Lichter Deborah C. Malamud Sunita Parikh John C. Sullivan Thomas J. Sugrue Carol M. Swain Steven M. Teles Roger Waldinger Christine Min Wotipka
A provocative new approach to race in the workplace What role should racial difference play in the American workplace? As a nation, we rely on civil rights law to address this question, and the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1964 seemingly answered it: race must not be a factor in workplace decisions. In After Civil Rights, John Skrentny contends that after decades of mass immigration, many employers, Democratic and Republican political leaders, and advocates have adopted a new strategy to manage race and work. Race is now relevant not only in negative cases of discrimination, but in more positive ways as well. In today's workplace, employers routinely practice "racial realism," where they view race as real—as a job qualification. Many believe employee racial differences, and sometimes immigrant status, correspond to unique abilities or evoke desirable reactions from clients or citizens. They also see racial diversity as a way to increase workplace dynamism. The problem is that when employers see race as useful for organizational effectiveness, they are often in violation of civil rights law. After Civil Rights examines this emerging strategy in a wide range of employment situations, including the low-skilled sector, professional and white-collar jobs, and entertainment and media. In this important book, Skrentny urges us to acknowledge the racial realism already occurring, and lays out a series of reforms that, if enacted, would bring the law and lived experience more in line, yet still remain respectful of the need to protect the civil rights of all workers.
In the wake of the black civil rights movement, other disadvantaged groups of Americans began to make headway--Latinos, women, Asian Americans, and the disabled found themselves the beneficiaries of new laws and policies--and by the early 1970s a minority rights revolution was well underway. In the first book to take a broad perspective on this wide-ranging and far-reaching phenomenon, John D. Skrentny exposes the connections between the diverse actions and circumstances that contributed to this revolution--and that forever changed the face of American politics. Though protest and lobbying played a role in bringing about new laws and regulations--touching everything from wheelchair access to women's athletics to bilingual education--what Skrentny describes was not primarily a bottom-up story of radical confrontation. Rather, elites often led the way, and some of the most prominent advocates for expanding civil rights were the conservative Republicans who later emerged as these policies' most vociferous opponents. This book traces the minority rights revolution back to its roots not only in the black civil rights movement but in the aftermath of World War II, in which a world consensus on equal rights emerged from the Allies' triumph over the oppressive regimes of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and then the Soviet Union. It also contrasts failed minority rights development for white ethnics and gays/lesbians with groups the government successfully categorized with African Americans. Investigating these links, Skrentny is able to present the world as America's leaders saw it; and so, to show how and why familiar figures--such as Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and, remarkably enough, conservatives like Senator Barry Goldwater and Robert Bork--created and advanced policies that have made the country more egalitarian but left it perhaps as divided as ever.
For courses in Inequality, Social Stratification, and Social Problems. A thoughtful compilation of readings on inequality in the United States. The main objective of this text is to introduce students to the subject of social stratification as it has developed in sociology. The central focus is on domestic inequality in the United States with some attention to the broader international context. The primary goal of the text is to offer an understanding of the history and context of debates about inequality, and a secondary goal is to give some indication as to what issues are likely to arise in the future.
We are living in an era of veritable STEM obsession. Not only do tech companies dominate our cultural imagination of American enterprise and financial growth, we urgently need science-based solutions to impending crises. As a society, we have poured enormous resources into cultivating young minds for STEM careers. The US sponsors 209 distinct STEM education programs in 13 different federal agencies at a cost of more than $3 billion. This spending is on top of countless initiatives from philanthropic foundations and corporate giving. And yet, we are facing a STEM worker crisis. In this project, sociologist John D. Skrentny asks, if we're investing so much in STEM education, why are as many as 75% of graduates with STEM degrees opting out of STEM careers? The problem is not education, he argues, but the available jobs. Skrentny aims to bring a reality check to America's growing dedication to STEM education. Each chapter highlights an aspect of STEM work culture that drives away bright minds, ranging from workplace culture and "burn and churn" management practices, to lack of job security, to the constant need for training on new innovations, to the racism and sexism that exclude non-white and Asian people and women. Skrentny shows that if we have any hope of crafting science-based solutions to many of our most urgent societal issues, we have to change the way we're treating these workers on whom our future depends"--
The first comprehensive study of the admission policies and practices at U.S. public universities, examining their "social contract" in light of contemporary debates over affirmative action, standardized testing, privatization, and the influences of globalization.
Affirmative action has been fiercely debated for more than a quarter of a century, producing much partisan literature, but little serious scholarship and almost nothing on its cultural and political origins. The Ironies of Affirmative Action is the first book-length, comprehensive, historical account of the development of affirmative action. Analyzing both the resistance from the Right and the support from the Left, Skrentny brings to light the unique moral culture that has shaped the affirmative action debate, allowing for starkly different policies for different citizens. He also shows, through an analysis of historical documents and court rulings, the complex and intriguing political circumstances which gave rise to these controversial policies. By exploring the mystery of how it took less than five years for a color-blind policy to give way to one that explicitly took race into account, Skrentny uncovers and explains surprising ironies: that affirmative action was largely created by white males and initially championed during the Nixon administration; that many civil rights leaders at first avoided advocacy of racial preferences; and that though originally a political taboo, almost no one resisted affirmative action. With its focus on the historical and cultural context of policy elites, The Ironies of Affirmative Action challenges dominant views of policymaking and politics.
In this bold new book, political scientist John Ehrenberg critically analyzes the rise of an ideologically coherent Right. He dissects their themes of military weakness, moral decay, racial anxiety, and hostility to social welfare to reveal their central organizing objective of protecting wealth and assaulting equality.
Affirmative Action recounts the fascinating history of a civil rights provision considered vital to protecting and promoting equality, but still bitterly contested in the courts—and in the court of public opinion. "Special consideration" or "reverse discrimination"? This examination traces the genesis and development of affirmative action and the continuing controversy that constitutes the story of racial and gender preferences. It pays attention to the individuals, the events, and the ideas that spawned federal and selected state affirmative action policies—and the resistance to those policies. Perhaps most important, it probes the key legal challenges to affirmative action in the nation's courts. The controversy over affirmative action in America has been marked by a persistent tension between its advocates, who emphasize the necessity of overcoming historical patterns of racial and gender injustice, and its critics, who insist on the integrity of color and gender blindness. In the wake of related U.S. Supreme Court decisions of 2007, Affirmative Action brings the story of one of the most embattled public policy issues of the last half century up to date, demonstrating that social justice cannot simply be legislated into existence, nor can voices on either side of the debate be ignored.
This book explores the recent spread of political efforts to rectify past injustices. Although it recognizes that reparations campaigns may lead to improved well-being of victims and to reconciliation among former antagonists, it examines the extent to which concern with the past may depart from the future orientation of progressive politics.
This is the first comprehensive account of African American secondary education in the postwar era. Drawing on quantitative datasets, as well as oral history, this compelling narrative examines how African Americans narrowed the racial gap in high school completion. The authors explore regional variations in high school attendance across the United States and how intraracial factors affected attendance within racial groups. They also examine the larger social historical context, such as the national high school revolution, the civil rights movement, campaigns to expand schooling and urging youth to stay in school, and Black migration northward. Closing chapters focus on desegregation and the "urban crisis" of the 1960s and 1970s that accelerated “White flight” and funding problems for urban school systems. The conclusion summarizes these developments and briefly looks at the period since 1980, when secondary attainment levels stopped advancing for Blacks and Whites alike. Book Highlights: A comprehensive history, drawing on statistical analysis, archival research, and interviews with African Americans who attended school in the 1940s and 1950s.Lessons from the past, showing how parents and local communities played the most direct and dynamic role in the fight for access to education.Today’s major challenges, including the growth of inner-city poverty and changing family structures. John L. Rury is professor of education and (by courtesy) history at the University of Kansas. Shirley A. Hill is professor of sociology at the University of Kansas. “Based on prodigious research, The African American Struggle for Secondary Schooling sets a new standard of excellence in social history and policy studies. The authors evocatively recreate the passions of the civil rights movement and centrality of public schools in the ongoing quest for justice, opportunity, and freedom.” —William J. Reese, Carl F. Kaestle WARF Professor of Educational Policy Studies and History, University of Wisconsin–Madison “This book is a rich and compelling addition to the literature on secondary education generally and on secondary education for African Americans specifically. It will set the standard for historical studies on American high schools for a long time to come.” —Jeffrey Mirel, David L. Angus Collegiate Chair of Education, Professor of History, University of Michigan “The African American Struggle for Secondary Schooling fills a major gap in the history of African American educational history. This book will be on my shelf and will no doubt be on the shelves of scholars and students who study African American educational history.” —Thomas V. O'Brien, Professor and Chair, Department of Educational Studies and Research, University of Southern Mississippi “This is the only book-length account of the growth and impact of secondary education for African Americans post-1930. With a unique and original analysis, the authors frame key themes not only within the common historiographical tradition of an unfolding of 'growth and development' over time, but correctly understand that high school entailed opportunities for ‘attainment’ in a broader social sense as well.” —Michael Fultz, Professor, Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison
This book emphasizes a forgotten aspect of human rights, i.e., to establish that human rights captures its meaning from human activism and advocacy. It explores factors which drive the advocacy of human rights integrating religious values reflected in human rights law. The book explores human rights activism in the history of ideas and the contributions of Celtic culture. It develops the framework for understanding the human rights struggle and the advocacy functions which drive it, exploring the critical role of emotion in the form of sentiment, either positive or negative, that promotes or prevents human rights violations. The negative sentiment chapter explores the major forms of human rights violations. Positive sentiment explores the role of affect, empathy and human solidarity in the promotion of the culture of human rights. Further chapters explore affect, gender, and sexual orientation, human rights and socio-economic justice, human rights and revolution, transitional justice, indigenous human rights, nuclear weapons and intellectual property.
This Annual Editions reader of public press articles discusses race and ehnicity in the American legal tradition; immigration and the American experience; indigenous ethnic groups; Hispanic and Latino Americans; Asian Americans; Africa Americans; the ethnic legacy; international challenges for the 1990's; and understanding cultural pluralism.
A collection of recent work in sociology, organized in sections on theory and methods, social processes, institutions and culture, formal organizations, political and economic sociology, differentiation and stratification, urban and rural sociology, and sociology of world religions. Topics include sexuality in the workplace, women's movements in the Third World, cultural criminology, the sociology of entrepreneurship, and socioeconomic position and health. The editors are affiliated with Duke University and the University of Toronto. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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