Lani Guinier's Books

Lift Every Voice

Turning a Civil Rights Setback Into a New Vision of Social Justice

By: Lani Guinier

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Lift Every Voice

Turning a Civil Rights Setback Into a New Vision of Social Justice

By: Lani Guinier

The author was nominated as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, but after critics from the right labelled her the "Quota Queen," the president not only withdrew his nomination but refused to allow her an opportunity to defend herself. Now she writes about what really happened behind closed doors, about the nation's racial history and commitment to equality and democracy, and about the courage of "ordinary" people.

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Page Count

346

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

0743253515

ISBN 13

9780743253512

The Tyranny of the Meritocracy

Democratizing Higher Education in America

By: Lani Guinier

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The Tyranny of the Meritocracy

Democratizing Higher Education in America

By: Lani Guinier

A fresh and bold argument for revamping our standards of “merit” and a clear blueprint for creating collaborative education models that strengthen our democracy rather than privileging individual elites Standing on the foundations of America’s promise of equal opportunity, our universities purport to serve as engines of social mobility and practitioners of democracy. But as acclaimed scholar and pioneering civil rights advocate Lani Guinier argues, the merit systems that dictate the admissions practices of these institutions are functioning to select and privilege elite individuals rather than create learning communities geared to advance democratic societies. Having studied and taught at schools such as Harvard University, Yale Law School, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Guinier has spent years examining the experiences of ethnic minorities and of women at the nation’s top institutions of higher education, and here she lays bare the practices that impede the stated missions of these schools. Goaded on by a contemporary culture that establishes value through ranking and sorting, universities assess applicants using the vocabulary of private, highly individualized merit. As a result of private merit standards and ever-increasing tuitions, our colleges and universities increasingly are failing in their mission to provide educational opportunity and to prepare students for productive and engaged citizenship. To reclaim higher education as a cornerstone of democracy, Guinier argues that institutions of higher learning must focus on admitting and educating a class of students who will be critical thinkers, active citizens, and publicly spirited leaders. Guinier presents a plan for considering “democratic merit,” a system that measures the success of higher education not by the personal qualities of the students who enter but by the work and service performed by the graduates who leave. Guinier goes on to offer vivid examples of communities that have developed effective learning strategies based not on an individual’s “merit” but on the collaborative strength of a group, learning and working together, supporting members, and evolving into powerful collectives. Examples are taken from across the country and include a wide range of approaches, each innovative and effective. Guinier argues for reformation, not only of the very premises of admissions practices but of the shape of higher education itself.

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Page Count

176

Publisher

Beacon Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807078123

ISBN 13

9780807078129

Becoming Gentlemen

Women, Law School, and Institutional Change

By: Lani Guinier

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Becoming Gentlemen

Women, Law School, and Institutional Change

By: Lani Guinier

The challenge, then, is not to invent new victims or new scapegoats but to mobilize America for the future. What would it take to ensure that all of us can succeed at getting the job done, the problem solved, and the future more secure?" As a student at Yale Law School in 1974, Lani Guinier attended a class with a white male professor who addressed all the students, male and female, as "gentlemen." To him the greeting was a form of honorific, evoking the values of traditional legal education. To her it was profoundly alienating. Years later Guinier began a study of female law students with her colleagues, Michelle Fine and Jane Balin, to try to understand the frustrations of women law students in male-dominated schools. Women are now entering law schools in large numbers, but too often many still do not feel welcome. As one says, "I used to be very driven, competitive. Then I started to realize that all my effort was getting me nowhere. I just stopped caring. I am scarred forever." After interviewing hundreds of women with similar stories, the authors conclude that conventional one-size-fits-all approaches to legal education discourage many women who could otherwise succeed and, even more, fail to help all students realize their full potential as legal problem-solvers. In Becoming Gentlemen Guinier, Fine, and Balin dare us to question what it means to become qualified, what a fair goal in education might be, and what we can learn from the experience of women law students about teaching and evaluating students in general. Including the authors' original study and two essays and a personal afterword by Lani Guinier, the book challenges us to work toward a more just society, based on ideals of cooperation, the resources of diversity, and the values of teamwork.

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Page Count

188

Publisher

Beacon Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807044059

ISBN 13

9780807044056

Tyranny of the Majority

Funamental Fairness in Representative Democracy

By: Lani Guinier

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Tyranny of the Majority

Funamental Fairness in Representative Democracy

By: Lani Guinier

At last...the public hearing she was denied...These essays reveal keen powers of analysis applied to some of the most obdurate problems that bedevil electoral politics. Anyone who cares about the mechanisms of democracy should be engaged by her tough-minded explorations. It doesn't matter where you think you stand: it's all here, to argue or agree with. -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Lani Guinier's fascinating book is a prophetic intervention into a public conversation we desperately need to rejuvenate. There is no doubt that her powerful voice will produce good consequences for our nation and world. -- Cornel West, Author of Race Matters Intriguing and desperately needed... -- The San Francisco Chronicle

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Page Count

356

Publisher

Free Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0029131693

ISBN 13

9780029131695

The Miner's Canary

enlisting race, resisting power, transforming democracy

By: Lani GUINIER,Gerald Torres,Lani Guinier

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The Miner's Canary

enlisting race, resisting power, transforming democracy

By: Lani GUINIER,Gerald Torres,Lani Guinier

Like the canaries that alerted miners to a poisonous atmosphere, issues of race point to underlying problems in society that ultimately affect everyone, not just minorities. Addressing these issues is essential. Ignoring racial differences--race blindness--has failed. Focusing on individual achievement has diverted us from tackling pervasive inequalities. Now, in a powerful and challenging book, Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres propose a radical new way to confront race in the twenty-first century. Given the complex relationship between race and power in America, engaging race means engaging standard winner-take-all hierarchies of power as well. Terming their concept political race, Guinier and Torres call for the building of grass-roots, cross-racial coalitions to remake those structures of power by fostering public participation in politics and reforming the process of democracy. Their illuminating and moving stories of political race in action include the coalition of Hispanic and black leaders who devised the Texas Ten Percent Plan to establish equitable state college admissions criteria, and the struggle of black workers in North Carolina for fair working conditions that drew on the strength and won the support of the entire local community. The aim of political race is not merely to remedy racial injustices, but to create truly participatory democracy, where people of all races feel empowered to effect changes that will improve conditions for everyone. In a book that is ultimately not only aspirational but inspirational, Guinier and Torres envision a social justice movement that could transform the nature of democracy in America.

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Page Count

402

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674038037

ISBN 13

9780674038035

Who's Qualified?

A New Democracy Forum on the Future of Affirmative Action

By: Lani Guinier,Susan Sturm

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Who's Qualified?

A New Democracy Forum on the Future of Affirmative Action

By: Lani Guinier,Susan Sturm

Affirmative action originated as a plan to correct the historical disadvantage of women and people of color-to make the system more fair. Yet, for over twenty years, it has been repeatedly attacked for being unfair to whites, and even un-American. Guinier and Sturm begin with a critique of affirmative action as it stands now, arguing that a system of selection that determines 'qualification' from test scores and then adds on factors like race and gender doesn't work-either for the people it includes or the people it leaves out. But they go further, asking us to rethink how we evaluate merit. Marshaling lively examples from education and the workplace, they expose the failure of tests to predict success. They provide evidence that people's success depends on the opportunities they have to perform, and that institutions do best when they are open to unanticipated contributions. Offering a model of selection based on performance, not prediction, the authors' reconception of an old ideal suggests at once a smart business practice and a step toward the promise of democratic opportunity. Paul Osterman, Stephen Steinberg, Peter Sacks, and others respond. NEW DEMOCRACY FORUM A series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns. The series editors (for Boston Review), Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers, aim to foster politically engaged, intellectually honest, and morally serious debate about fundamental issues-both on and off the agenda of conventional politics.

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Page Count

132

Publisher

Beacon Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807043354

ISBN 13

9780807043356

The Tyranny of the Meritocracy

Democratizing Higher Education in America

By: Lani Guinier

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The Tyranny of the Meritocracy

Democratizing Higher Education in America

By: Lani Guinier

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Page Count

176

Publisher

Beacon Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807078123

ISBN 13

9780807078129

Lift Every Voice

Turning a Civil Rights Setback Into a New Vision of Social Justice

By: Lani Guinier

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Lift Every Voice

Turning a Civil Rights Setback Into a New Vision of Social Justice

By: Lani Guinier

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

346

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

0743253515

ISBN 13

9780743253512

The Miner's Canary

enlisting race, resisting power, transforming democracy

By: Lani GUINIER,Gerald Torres,Lani Guinier

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The Miner's Canary

enlisting race, resisting power, transforming democracy

By: Lani GUINIER,Gerald Torres,Lani Guinier

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

402

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674038037

ISBN 13

9780674038035

Becoming Gentlemen

Women, Law School, and Institutional Change

By: Lani Guinier

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Becoming Gentlemen

Women, Law School, and Institutional Change

By: Lani Guinier

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

188

Publisher

Beacon Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807044059

ISBN 13

9780807044056

Tyranny of the Majority

Funamental Fairness in Representative Democracy

By: Lani Guinier

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Tyranny of the Majority

Funamental Fairness in Representative Democracy

By: Lani Guinier

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

356

Publisher

Free Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0029131693

ISBN 13

9780029131695

Who's Qualified?

A New Democracy Forum on the Future of Affirmative Action

By: Lani Guinier,Susan Sturm

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Who's Qualified?

A New Democracy Forum on the Future of Affirmative Action

By: Lani Guinier,Susan Sturm

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

132

Publisher

Beacon Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807043354

ISBN 13

9780807043356

The Miner’s Canary

Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy

By: Lani Guinier,Gerald Torres

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The Miner’s Canary

Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy

By: Lani Guinier,Gerald Torres

Like the canaries that alerted miners to a poisonous atmosphere, issues of race point to underlying problems in society that ultimately affect everyone, not just minorities. Addressing these issues is essential. Ignoring racial differences--race blindness--has failed. Focusing on individual achievement has diverted us from tackling pervasive inequalities. Now, in a powerful and challenging book, Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres propose a radical new way to confront race in the twenty-first century. Given the complex relationship between race and power in America, engaging race means engaging standard winner-take-all hierarchies of power as well. Terming their concept "political race," Guinier and Torres call for the building of grass-roots, cross-racial coalitions to remake those structures of power by fostering public participation in politics and reforming the process of democracy. Their illuminating and moving stories of political race in action include the coalition of Hispanic and black leaders who devised the Texas Ten Percent Plan to establish equitable state college admissions criteria, and the struggle of black workers in North Carolina for fair working conditions that drew on the strength and won the support of the entire local community. The aim of political race is not merely to remedy racial injustices, but to create truly participatory democracy, where people of all races feel empowered to effect changes that will improve conditions for everyone. In a book that is ultimately not only aspirational but inspirational, Guinier and Torres envision a social justice movement that could transform the nature of democracy in America.

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

316

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674254236

ISBN 13

9780674254237

Book's by Lani Guinier

Lift Every Voice

Lift Every Voice

The Tyranny of the Meritocracy

The Tyranny of the Meritocracy

Becoming Gentlemen

Becoming Gentlemen

Tyranny of the Majority

Tyranny of the Majority

The Miner's Canary

The Miner's Canary

Who's Qualified?

Who's Qualified?

The Tyranny of the Meritocracy

The Tyranny of the Meritocracy

Lift Every Voice

Lift Every Voice

The Miner's Canary

The Miner's Canary

Becoming Gentlemen

Becoming Gentlemen

Tyranny of the Majority

Tyranny of the Majority

Who's Qualified?

Who's Qualified?

The Miner’s Canary

The Miner’s Canary

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