Race, Gender, and Affirmative Action

By far the best, most theoretically sophisticated available article-length reference, online or in text, on the concept of race.  It stands out for clearly distinguishing the many different uses and corresponding definitions of race, and also for the comparisons it makes with the concept of gender.  A shorter version of this paper is forthcoming in Nous.

Haslanger, Sally. On Social Construction. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

*Appiah, K. Anthony. "Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections," in Appiah and Gutmann, Color Conscious: the Political Morality of Race. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).

Superb, highly accessible critique of historical concepts of race as they figured in natural history and biology in the U.S. and Europe.  Defends subjective racial identities as contingent bases for affiliation in a postmodern spirit.  Outstanding for its jargon-free exposition, and for its critique of the claim that racial identities are marked by distinct cultures.

*Zack, Naomi. Thinking about Race. (Belmont, Cal.: Wadsworth, 1998).

Useful accessible undergraduate text covering the concepts of race and racism, mixed race, ethnicity, racial and ethnic identity, the intersections of race, gender, and class, whiteness, race and sexuality, and other topics.  Balances discussion of black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Indian, Jewish, and mixed-race concerns.  Contains excellent suggestions for further reading.

Exposes the ways in which supposedly "scientific" concepts of race relied upon confused popular representations of racial groups, and how these popular representations depend upon social rather than biological factors.  Useful discussion of varieties of racial classifications, inside and outside the U.S.

*Livingstone, Frank. "On the Nonexistence of Human Races." In Ashley Montague, ed. The Concept of Race (New York: Free Press, 1964).  Reprinted in Sandra Harding, ed., The "Racial" Economy of Science (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 133-141.

Classic critique of the biological concept of race from a genetic and evolutionary point of view.  The Montague volume in which this appears collects many important articles from the postwar scientific critique of "scientific" racism.

*Stepan, Nancy Leys and Gilman, Sander, "Appropriating the Idioms of Science: The Rejection of Scientific Racism," in Dominick LaCapra, ed., The Bounds of Race: Perspectives on Hegemony and Resistance (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991).    Reprinted in Sandra Harding, ed., The "Racial" Economy of Science (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 170-193.

Documents the critiques made by African-Americans and Jews of racial concepts and "scientific" racism from 1870-1920.

*Olson, Steve, "The Genetic Archaeology of Race," Atlantic Monthly April 2001.

Excellent online article on the latest understanding of human genetics, debunking the idea that the racial classifications used by different societies have a genetic basis.  Elegantly explains how this can be true even though there are some genetically based physical differences (e.g., in skin color) broadly associated with membership in different groups of people popularly classified as belonging to different races.

Explains the difference between "racial" and "ethnic" minorities in terms of the circumstances of their incorporation into the U.S.  The groups currently thought of as "racial" were "colonized"-- forcibly incorporated by conquest or kidnapping, deprived of legal equality, forced into subordinated socioeconomic roles, and deprived of their cultures.  By contrast, "ethnic" or "immigrant" minorities chose to come to the U.S. (although they may have been forced out of their home countries, they usually had a choice of destinations), enjoyed legal equality, and were permitted to advance and integrate themselves in U.S. institutions after relatively brief struggle.

*Takaki, Ronald, ed. From Different Shores, 2d. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Highly accessible teaching anthology on the social construction of race and ethnicity in the U.S., paying attention to the intersections of race and ethnicity with class, gender, and age, and to public policy controversies.  In addition to the outstanding Blauner article cited above, contains useful articles discussing the particular experiences of a wide variety of ethnic and immigrant groups from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe.

Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish Became White. (New York : Routledge, 1995).

Traces one story in the social construction of whiteness: the ways Irish immigrants to the U.S. gained access to the status of whites by advancing their interests at the expense of African-Americans.

Explores the social construction of race through mixed-race identities.  Discusses  reaffirmations of pure racial categories, suggestions for new multiracial identities, and arguments for eliminating "race."

*Boxill, Bernard. "Separation or Assimilation?" in John Arthur and Amy Shapiro, eds., Campus Wars: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Difference (Boulder, Col.: Westview, 1995), pp. 235-248.

Nuanced discussion by a distinguished African-American philosopher of the dilemma between separation and assimilation posed by DuBois and black cultural nationalists.  Rejects the terms of the dilemma, arguing that there is no duty of blacks to identify or affiliate particularly with other blacks, but that there may be good reasons to so identify.

*Kennedy, Randall. "My Race Problem -- And Ours: A consideration of touchy matters -- racial pride, racial solidarity, and racial loyalty -- rarely discussed," The Atlantic, May 1997.

In contrast with Boxill, rejects racial pride, racial solidarity, and racial loyalty as inappropriate attitudes to take toward one's race.  This paper, along with Boxill's, above, would make an excellent pair of articles contrasting two points of view on subjective racial identity.

Chavez, Linda. Out of the Barrio : Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation. (New York: Basic Books, 1992).

Famous attack, by a conservative Hispanic political activist, on bilingualism and similar policies aimed at preserving cultural differences of immigrants from Latin America.  Defends an assimilationist ideal for Hispanics.

*Wasserstrom, Richard. "On Racism and Sexism," in Philosophy and Social Issues (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1980), pp. 11-29.

Classic philosophical discussion of a color-blind ideal of society.  Argues that a sex-blind ideal is not as plausible, and considers a pluralist (non-assimilationist) alternative ideal of society with respect to both sex and race.

*Young, Iris Marion. "Social Movements and the Politics of Difference," in John Arthur and Amy Shapiro, eds., Campus Wars: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Difference (Boulder, Col.: Westview, 1995).

Criticizes assimilationist ideal of liberation, conceived as the transcendence of group difference.  Defends liberatory movements that stress "a positive self-definition of group difference", applying the ideal of a "heterogeneous public" to cases involving women, American Indians, and non-English speakers in the U.S.  This paper, combined with a selection from Hollinger, below, would provide an outstanding pair of papers for teaching purposes that contrast two distinct visions of multiculturalism.

*Hollinger, David. Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism. (New York: Basic Books, 1995).

Contrasts a cosmopolitan ideal of voluntary ethno-racial identity with more particularistic conceptions of fixed social identity that the author takes to characterize much multicultural discourse and politics.  Criticizes the idea that ethno-racial identity ought to take precedence over national identity, while also rejecting ideals of assimilation and "color-blindness."

Taylor, Charles. Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

Sophisticated philosophical defense of multiculturalism by noted Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. Includes commentary by Jurgen Habermas, Amy Gutmann, Anthony Appiah, and others.

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Disuniting of America : Reflections on a Multicultural Society (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998).

Attacks multiculturalism for creating a Balkanized society.  Poses a useful contrast to Taylor's more favorable view, above.

Frankenburg, Ruth. White Women, Race Matters : The Social Construction of Whiteness. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).

Interviews with white American women explore their racial identities "from the inside".  This book helped shift scholarly work on race toward greater attention to the "unmarked" white racial identity.

Sophisticated, sensitive, nuanced discussion of moral problems concerning race.  Especially good at resisting the tendency to think that any issue involving race is one involving racism.  Argues that to avoid expanding the meaning of the term to the point of reducing its normative force, we need to distinguish racism (antipathy or contempt for people on account of their race) from other phenomena involving race (e.g., racial anxiety, racial ignorance).  The other phenomena are also of moral concern, but not proper grounds for moral condemnation.  Also contains an excellent discussion of what "race" is.

Denies that racist motives add to the wrongness of any action, because only individuals, not groups, are subjects of moral harms and duties.  Argues that it follows from this fact that there is no case to be made that wrongs against racial groups deserve special rectification measures, such as affirmative action.

*Brooks, D. H. M., "Why Discrimination is Especially Wrong," Journal of Value Inquiry 17 (1983): 305-312.  Reprinted in T. Mappes and Jane Zembaty, eds. Social Ethics (McGraw-Hill, 1987), pp. 199-204.

Argues, against Levin, that systematic, institutionalized racial discrimination is especially wrong and deserving of special rectification measures.  A key point of his argument concerns the ways group identities magnify harms motivated by group antipathy:  the terror of a racist lynching is experienced not just by the particular victim, but by everyone else in the group who is symbolically targeted by the lynching as considered fit for subhuman treatment.

*Steven M. Cahn, The Affirmative Action Debate, 2d. ed. (New York: Routledge, 2002)

Contains 8 short pieces on individual vs. group treatment.  Because this volume has just been published, the papers are more accessible than those listed above.  However, none of them in combination is as good in representing the issues than the Levin-Brooks pair above, because they are all so brief.

Owen Fiss, "Groups and the Equal Protection Clause," Philosophy and Public Affairs 5 (1976): 107-177.

Classic paper defending a group-based view of equal protection; advocating group remedies as solutions to group-based harms.

Fundamental defense of a colorblind ideal of justice.

*Loury, Glenn. "The Divided Society and the Democratic Idea," University Lecture, Boston University, October 7, 1996.

Argues that "explicit attention to inequality between
Blacks and Whites, as distinct from a purely color-blind
concern about inequality among individuals, is essential to
the attainment of social justice."  Important speech by a noted African-American economist who is usually labelled "conservative" for his criticism of the contemporary civil rights racial agenda, including affirmative action, but whose views are in fact not easy to classify.

Defends the view, against theories of institutional racism or oppression theories, that racism requires bad intentions or attitudes toward racial groups.

Piper, Adrian. "Higher-Order Discrimination," in Owen Flanagan and Amelie Rorty, eds. Identity, Character, and Morality: Essays in Moral Psychology (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1990).

Important philosophical discussion of covert racism, whereby people may express racial antipathy in their behavior without being aware of or endorsing such attitudes.

*Ezorsky, Gertrude. "Overt and Institutional Racism," ch. 1 of Racism and Justice: the Case for Affirmative Action. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991).

Perhaps the single best, brief, most accessible source for undergraduate instruction on what institutional racism is.

*Frye, Marilyn. "Sexism" in The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. (Freedom, Cal.: Crossing Press, 1983), pp. 17-40.

Highly accessible teaching source; defines sexism as a system of oppression based on classifying people by sex.  This careful paper, along with "Oppression" in the same volume, are feminist classics.

*Young, Iris Marion. "Five Faces of Oppression," ch. 2 of Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

Discusses oppression as a structural phenomenon expressed in exploitation, violence, cultural imperialism, marginalization, and subordination.  Defends the relevance of considering social groups rather than individuals as the focus of moral and political concern.

Alfred Blumrosen, "Strangers in Paradise: Griggs v. Duke Power Co. and the Concept of  Employment Discrimination," in Paul Burstein, ed., Equal Employment Opportunity (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1994), pp. 105-120.

Important legal defense of the disparate impact standard of racial discrimination, by the principal legal inventor of the standard.  The author, as head of EEOC, successfully persuaded the Supreme Court to adopt the disparate impact standard for Title VII employment discrimination claims in Griggs.  Blumrosen usefully develops the different standards of discrimination by analogy with the different standards of liability in torts (malice, negligence, strict).  He also makes it clear that the prime rationale for the differential impact standard is not that racial proportional representation is a first principle of justice, but that gratuitous impositions of burdens on those already disadvantaged on account of race are unfair.

Defense of unreconstructed biological racism.  Argues, on the basis of black-white differences in intelligence tests and crime rates, that racial inequalities in society are caused by genetic differences in intelligence and that higher black crime rates are due to genetically based black impulsiveness.  Expresses more certainty and stridency about its conclusions than the more famous and circumspect Bell Curve. Includes a fairly comprehensive survey of the literature on race differences in intelligence and criminality oriented toward genetic hypotheses.

Herrnstein, Richard and Murray, Charles. The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. (New York : Free Press, 1994).

Most controversial for its suggestion that blacks are genetically determined to be less intelligent than whites.  Its central argument, however, is class-based:  that differences in IQ are a primary cause of differences in socioeconomic success.

Fraser, Steven, ed. The bell curve wars : race, intelligence, and the future of America (New York : BasicBooks, 1995).

Comprehensive critique of the science, data, and ideology of The Bell Curve.

Ned Block, "How Heritability Misleads about Race," Boston Review 20 (6) 1996: 30-35.

Outstanding online article on the misuse of concepts of genetic heritability in relation to claims about genetic causes of racial differences.

Sowell, Thomas. "Ethnicity and IQ," American Spectator, Feb. 1, 1995, pp. 32.

While defending the authors of the Bell Curve from liberal attackers, argues that the "Flynn effect"--the demonstrated historical increase of many groups' I.Q.'s over a few decades (too short a time for significant changes in their gene pool) of orders of magnitude comparable to the black-white IQ gap--is devastating to their thesis that blacks are genetically inferior in intelligence to whites.

Blames the welfare state for inculcating dependency, bad behavior, and consequently poverty in blacks and the underclass because of its perverse incentives and destruction of moral standards.

Jencks, Christopher. Rethinking Social Policy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992).

Criticizes Murray's Losing Ground data and logic in ch. 2.

D'Souza, Dinesh. The End of Racism: Principles for a Multicultural Society. (New York: Free Press, 1996).

Blames the relative lack of black socioeconomic success on black cultural pathology, denying that white racism is any longer a significant factor.  In odd contradiction to this, acknowledges and defends "rational" (i.e., self-interested) discrimination against blacks based on negative statistical generalizations about them.  Reconciles the contradiction by denying that such discrimination constitutes racism.  Calls for ending affirmative action and repealing antidiscrimination laws.

Sowell, Thomas. Race and Culture: a World View. (New York: Basic Books, 1994).

Considerably more sophisticated than D'Souza.  Argues that the primary determinant of the socioeconomic success of ethnic groups worldwide is neither genes nor prejudice, but their "cultural capital" (work habits, orientation to the market, education, etc.).

Anderson, Elijah. "The Code of the Streets," The Atlantic, May 1994.

A different take on cultural pathology: argues that inner city blacks, the vast majority of whom do not endorse the "street ethics" of crime, drugs, and violence, are trapped into "street" norms of honor and revenge as a condition of survival.  This creates a vicious cycle, whereby hopelessness of marginalization leads to the quest for "respect" via violent street norms, and conformity to these norms in turn ensures deeper marginalization and isolation from mainstream opportunities.

Thernstrom, Steven and Thernstrom, Abigail, America in Black and White (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997).

By far the most important book arguing that reponsibility for improving their situation today lies mainly with blacks.  Contains a lengthy and widely acclaimed history of antiblack racism in the U.S.  Argues that racism has ceased to be a major force in blacks' lives in recent years.  Instead, blacks need to study harder, adapt to an entrepreneurial culture, and reject crime and out-of-wedlock childbearing.  Argues that reliance on the civil rights agenda has disserved blacks.  The great strength of the book is its extensive historical evidence, some of which poses sharp challenges to William J. Wilson's hypothesis that black unemployment is due to a spatial mismatch of blacks and jobs.  If jobs are lacking in the inner cities, then how have Asian immigrants managed to succeed there?  The great weakness of the book is its failure to consider the continuing importance of racial segregation to the fate of African-Americans, and its consistent downplaying of evidence of continuing racism in the U.S.

Surveys extensive empirical evidence for the phenomenon of "aversive racism", a form of covert racism whereby self-described colorblind individuals manifest racially discriminatory attitudes and behaviors of which they are unaware.

*Kirschenman, Joleen and Neckerman, Kathryn. "We'd Love to Hire Them, But. . . ": The Meaning of Race for Employers," in Christopher Jencks and Paul Peterson, eds. The Urban Underclass (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991), pp. 203-232.

Documents complex patterns of racial discrimination among Chicago-area employers, based on interviews with them.  Useful for considering the interactions of race with ethnicity, class, and other factors.

*Glenn Loury, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002)

Identifies racial stereotypes and racial stigma as fundamental causes of racial inequality in the U.S., offering a model of the dynamics of these psychological constructs in reproducing inequality through the interactions of individuals.  Loury's model is not a "discrimination" model, but rather a "stigmatization" model. His point is that racial stigmatization plays a more important role than direct discrimination in producing racial inequality, by depriving blacks of opportunities for development.  Inequalities initially produced through intentional discrimination can become entrenched, perpetually reproducing themselves via voluntary market interactions of individuals thereafter. A very important book.

Ian Ayers, Pervasive Prejudice?: Unconventional Evidence of Race and Gender Discrimination (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2001).

Important empirical study of racial and gender discrimination in retail markets. Ayers is one of the leading researchers who employs the audit testing method to detect market discrimination. This involves sending out carefully matched black and white, or male and female, prospective consumers to different retailers and finding out if they are treated differently by the firms they visit. Ayers found evidence of pervasive discrimination against blacks and women in retail car negotiations, and discrimination against blacks in bail bonding and access to kidney transplants. This constitutes very strong empirical evidence against Gary Becker's famous hypothesis that markets drive out discrimination. Glenn Loury, in The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, cited above, offers theoretical models of market interactions that explain Ayers' empirical results.

 
*Steele, Claude. "Race and the Schooling of Black Americans," The Atlantic, April 1992.

Argues that the lower educational performance of black relative to white students is due to racial stigma. Under the sway of racial stereotypes, teachers fail to notice and encourage black academic performance.  Internalization of racial stereotypes of black intellectual inferiority threatens black students with the prospect that their failures will be interpreted as reflecting the failures of their race.  Disidentification with school is a strategy for coping with the stereotype vulnerability that threatens black students' self-esteem.

Barbara Reskin, "The Proximate Causes of Employment Discrimination," Contemporary Sociology 29 (2000): 319-329.

Excellent brief summary of the theory and evidence of how discrimination works through unconscious cognitive biases--stereotypes, attributions, ingroup preference, etc.--and how workplaces can be changed to block the operation of these biases.

*"True Colors" ABC Primetime Live Segment, Sept. 26, 1991.

By far the best, most vivid demonstration available today of the persistance of racial discrimination in the U.S.  Perfect for instructional purposes at 20 minutes in length.  Available in many university video libraries.  ABC sent two carefully matched "testers", one white, one black, to St. Louis to see how they faired in numerous encounters:  shopping for shoes, renting a video, searching for an apartment, seeking employment, buying a car, hailing a taxi, and so forth.  They captured egregious cases of worse treatment of the black tester in every setting.  The cumulative impact of these cases over a short period of time is stunning.

Most valuable for its extensive statistical documentation of black-white racial inequality in the U.S.  Readers not already persuaded by theories of institutional racism tend to doubt the author's causal claims that black disadvantages can be attributed to white racism, in part because of his neglect of alternative hypotheses.

*Massey, Douglas and Denton, Nancy. American Apartheid : Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993).

Focuses on pervasive residential segregation as a linchpin of continuing black socioeconomic disadvantage.  Extremely useful source of data on housing segregation, including detailed and rigorously documented evidence of continuing systematic and extensive housing discrimination practiced by landlords and real estate agents.  Discusses the ways housing segregation underwrites other explanations of black disadvantage, such as difficulties in accumulating wealth, poor access to public services, especially to good schools, cultural/linguistic isolation, difficulties in forging political coalitions with other groups, the spatial mismatch between where blacks live and where job growth is occurring, etc.  Chapter 4 contains a particularly illuminating discussion, suitable for undergraduate instruction, of the causes and consequences of institutionalized housing discrimination, including an important comparison of white and black Hispanics.

Massey, Douglas. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System. (New York: Russell Sage, 2007).

First-rate account of the fundamental causes of social stratification by race, class, and gender in the U.S.  Extensively documented discussion of the latest studies, integrating sociology, social psychology, political science, and economics.  If you need a single source covering it all, this is it.  Particularly good on blacks and Latinos, especially on the effects of mass incarceration on blacks.

Roithmayr, Daria, "Locked In Inequality: The Persistence of Discrimination," 9 Michigan Journal of Race and Law 31 (2003)
Roithmayr, Daria, "Locked in Segregation" . Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law, Vol. 12, No. 957 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=627724

Wilson, William Julius. When Work Disappers : The World of the New Urban Poor (New York: Vintage Books, 1997).

Argues that black socioeconomic disadvantage can be attributed to the disappearance of jobs in the inner cities, where blacks disproportionately live.  An important work, especially for the way it addresses the argument that black disadvantages can be attributed to black cultural pathology.  Wilson acknowledges cultural pathology, but argues that its cause is the inability of black men to find work.

Oliver, Melvin and Shapiro, Thomas. Black Wealth, White Wealth : A New Perspective on Racial Inequality. (Routledge, 1997).

Documents the large disparities between black and white wealth.  Argues that the causal impact of wealth differences is often overlooked in analyses of racial disadvantage that focus on much smaller racial differences in income. The wealth gap is not explained by lower black savings rates, but by the fact that whites inherit more wealth, have greater opportunities to enjoy housing appreciation, and own more businesses.

Kousser, J. Morgan. Colorblind injustice : minority voting rights and the undoing of the Second Reconstruction. (Chapel Hill, N.C. : The University of North Carolina Press,1999).

Comprehensive account of disenfranchisement of African-Americans and Latinos in the U.S.  The first chapter, covering the decline of African-American enfranchisement from the end of Reconstruction until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, is a tour de force.  That chapter gives an outstanding account of the innumerable strategies used by Southern states to disenfranchise blacks without using overt racial classification.  The focus of the book is on post- Voting Rights Act litigation, emphasizing the ways in which African-American and Latino voters continue to have their voting power diluted by various state and political party actions, and how the Supreme Court has failed to protect these groups against effective political marginalization.  Of special interest for its focus on Mexican-American as well as black disenfranchisement.

Kennedy, Randall. Race, Crime, and the Law. (New York: Vintage Books, 1997).

The best comprehensive study of racial discrimination in law enforcement, on every level:  differential protection of racial groups from crime, differential prosecution, racial profiling, race-based jury selection, racism in the application of the death penalty.  A mark of intellectual integrity in the book is that the author toes no party lines:  while finding that the evidence supports the claim that there is racism in the application of the death penalty, Kennedy is more skeptical of arguments that the war on drugs--in particular, the sentencing differential between those convicted of possessing crack and powder cocaine--is racist.

Probably the single best brief account of the systematic socioeconomic disadvantages women face due the institution of  marriage.  Outstanding undergraduate teaching source, highly accessible and clearly written.  Focuses on the interactions of norms of marriage and a sexist division of labor within the family, the socialization of girls to expect marriage and large childrearing responsibilities, the relatively weak bargaining power of women within marriage, and women's limited options in the labor market.

Catherine MacKinnon, Sexual Harassment of Working Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979)

Classic text that made the case that sexual harassment in the workplace constitutes a violation of antidiscrimination law.  Revolutionized the law of discrimination.  Analyzes sexual harassment as a means by which the subordination of women in the workplace is sustained.  Even more than 20 years later, MacKinnon's original analysis of sexual harassment remains important.

Rhode, Deborah. Speaking of Sex: the Denial of Gender Inequality. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997).

Documents the continuing systematic disadvantages women face in U.S. society across a wide range of legal, social, and public policy settings.  Explains why people have difficulty recognizing women's disadvantages.

Valian, Virginia. Why So Slow?: the Advancement of Women. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998).

The most comprehensive and empirically rigorous account to date of the relatively slow advancement of women in the professions.  Argues, on the basis of extensive data from psychology, sociology, economics, and biology, that people employ hypotheses about gender differences, embodied in "gender schemas" that create small sex differences in characteristics, behaviors, perceptions and evaluations of men and women.  These small differences accumulate, resulting in systematic underrating of women relative to men in professional settings.  An excellent reference work, with numerous highly useful citations.

 
Reskin, Barbara. "Sex Segregation in the Workplace," Annual Review of Sociology 19 (1993): 241-270.

Identifies gender segregation of work (the fact that most people work in jobs overwhelmingly staffed by people of the same sex) as a major cause of gender inequality in resources.  Attributes this phenomenon to several causes, including employer stereotypes and preferences, actions of male employees to deter women from entering or persisting in male-dominated jobs, and structural features of the internal job market (if only some entry-level jobs lead to promotion opportunities, then preferential selection of men to those job will entail that they dominate the upper-level jobs as well).  The big surprise of Reskin's survey of empirical research is that economic "human capital" explanations of gender segregation are empirically disconfirmed: motherhood actually increases the probability that a woman will be in or seek a nontraditional (male-dominated) job.

Goldberg, Steven. Why Men Rule : A Theory of Male Dominance (Open Court, 1993).

Argues that biological differences between the sexes make male dominance inevitable.  Rewritten update with replies to critics of Goldberg's 1973 Inevitability of Patriarchy.  Claims that sex differences in testosterone make men more aggressive, competitive, and ambitious than women, and hence motivates men to excel in any field their culture deems prestigious.

Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Myths of Gender: Biological Theories About Women and Men (New York: Basic Books, 1985.

Highly accessible critique by a biologist of biological theories (genetic, hormonal, evolutionary) that purport to explain male dominance.  Ch. 5 on hormones and aggession makes an effective pairing with Goldberg.

Argues that African-Americans are entitled to receive preferential treatment in employment and college admissions as reparations for slavery, Jim Crow, and institutional discrimination.

*Nickel, James. “Should Reparations Be to Individuals or to Groups?” Analysis 34.5 (1974): 154–60.

*Duster, Troy. "Individual Fairness, Group Preferences, and the California Strategy," in Robert Post and Michael Rogin, eds. Race and Representation: Affirmative Action (New York: Zone Books, 1998), pp. 111-133.

Updates the redress argument, exploring the history of racial discrimination from the New Deal through the civil rights era.  Makes interesting parallels with the caste systems of South Africa and India, and affirmative action systems in these countries.  Considers the political motives behind the movement to prohibit affirmative action in California.  Also contains an intriguing discussion of Brandeis University's decision to practice affirmative action for men upon its discovery that exclusive reliance on criteria of academic merit would lead to a student body that was 70% female.

For those who are skeptical about reparations for harms incurred a generation or more ago, Ezorsky argues that affirmative action can be justified on the ground that the harms of discrimination are current, and require compensation.

*Axelson, Diana. "With All Deliberate Delay: on Justifying Preferential Policies in Education and Employment," Philosophical Forum 9 (1977-8): 264-288.

Widely reprinted defense of affirmative action as a necessary correction for current discrimination.  Documentation of continuing institutional racism is central to the article.  Has the advantage over Ezorsky of brevity; makes an excellent companion piece to Pojman's anti-affirmative action paper (cited below), for those who wish to present students with a pair of highly representative articles on affirmative action, pro- and con.  Its disadvantage is that it is somewhat dated; for this reason the Ezorsky book, with its updated argument and evidence, may well be preferred as a teaching source.  Relevant portions of Ezorsky can be excerpted for those who don't want to assign the entire book.

*Fish, Stanley. "Reverse Racism, or How the Pot Got to Call the Kettle Black," The Atlantic, November 1993.

Lively, highly accessible defense of affirmative action, more by replying to criticisms than by direct argument.  Argues that the charge of reverse discrimination ignores history, and that objections on grounds of merit ignore the weak justification of conventional criteria of merit such as the SAT as well as current obstacles to equality of opportunity.

Yelnosky, Michael. “The Prevention Justification for Affirmative Action.” Ohio State Law Journal 64 (2003): 1385-1425.

Provides evidence that tokenism in the workplace hurts women and minorities by exposing them to discrimination.  More fully integrating jobs so women and minorities don't stand out can prevent discrimination against them.  Affirmative action is a tool for integrating jobs.

Kang, Jerry and Banaji, Mahzarin, "Fair Measures: A Behavioral Realist Revision of 'Affirmative Action'" . California Law Review, Forthcoming Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=873907

Defends affirmative action as a remedy for current unconscious discrimination.  Based on the latest theories of implicit bias (cognitive discrimination). The authors argue that viewing affirmative action as a correction of current bias avoids the difficulties of backward-looking and future-benefit rationales for race-conscious selection.

Argues that race-based affirmative action policies are necessary in college admissions because a central mission of the university is to promote a democratic culture.  This requires building the cultural capital of all citizens, so that they have the communicative and imaginative skills necessary for creating a universally inclusive, democratic discourse.  Colleges and universities "aspire to cultivate the remarkable and difficult capacity to regard oneself from the perspective of the other, which is the foundation of the critical interaction necessary for active and effective citizenship", p. 23.  Without a diverse student body (to which end affirmative action is necessary), educational institutions will be able to inculcate only limited capacities for critical interaction across group divisions.  Post stresses that this argument does not depend on the thought that identities correspond to cultures, or that individuals have fixed identities.  Part of the point of a democratic culture is to free individuals and citizens acting collectively to engage in self-definition and self-determination, without being beholden to definitions based on birth or ancestry.

Issacharoff, Samuel. "Can Affirmative Action be Defended?" Ohio State Law Journal 59 (1998): 669-695.

Important paper by a former University of Texas law professor who was recruited by his university to help defend UT's affirmative action policies in the famous Hopwood case (they lost). Argues that the democratic state has a compelling interest in training a racially integrated elite. Race-based affirmative action is the only way to enable schools to simultaneously pursue their compelling interests in meritocracy and in integrating all groups into the nation's elite. Contains important data and arguments explaining why race-neutral attempts to secure integration either fatally compromise academic standards or fail to generate significant black and Hispanic enrollment in selective schools.

Estlund, Cynthia. "Working together: the workplace, civil society, and the law," Georgetown Law Journal 89 (2000).
Estlund, Cynthia. Working Together: How Workplace Bonds Strengthen a Diverse Democracy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005).

Weisskopf, Thomas. Affirmative Action in the United States and India: A Comparative Perspective. (Routledge, 2004).

"The most important objective of . . . [affirmative action policies] is to bring about greater ethnic integration of society's elite, on the reasonable premise that society functions more efficiently, more equitably, more democratically, and more harmoniously if its professional, managerial, academic, and political elite is ethnically well integrated." (p. 244).

Defense of affirmative action with replies to a major critic (cited below).  Besides appealing to considerations of compensatory justice, offers a battery of arguments for its good consequences: (1) role models; (2) diversity in education; (3) increases in the pool of applicants and hence competition; (4) replacement of diminishing marginal utility for richer whites with more utility for poorer blacks; and (5) unskewing biased and incomplete tests of merit.

(From the abstract:) Using two large physician surveys, finds that minority and women physicians are much more likely to serve minority, poor, and Medicaid populations. Weaker, but significant association exists between physician and patient socioeconomic   background. Service patterns are sustained over time and are generally consistent with physician career preferences. Argues that ending affirmative action in medicine may imperil access to care. Results do not support affirmative action based on economic disadvantage instead of race, ethnicity, and sex.

Komaromy M. Grumbach K. Drake M. Vranizan K. Lurie N. Keane D. Bindman AB. "The role of black and Hispanic physicians in providing health care for underserved populations," New England Journal of Medicine 334(20):1305-10 (1996).

(From the abstract:) Analyzed data on physicians' practice locations and the racial and ethnic makeup and socioeconomic status of communities in California in 1990. Also surveyed 718 primary care physicians from 51 California communities in 1993 to examine the relation between the physicians' race or ethnic group and the characteristics of the patients they served. Found that communities with high proportions of black and Hispanic     residents were four times as likely as others to have a shortage of physicians, regardless of community income. Black physicians practiced in areas where the percentage of black residents was nearly five times as high, on average, as in areas where other physicians practiced. Hispanic physicians practiced in areas where the percentage of Hispanic residents was twice as high as in areas where other physicians practiced. After controlling for the racial and ethnic makeup of the community, black physicians cared for significantly more black patients (absolute difference, 25 percentage points; P < 0.001) and Hispanic physicians for significantly more Hispanic patients (absolute difference, 21     percentage points; P < 0.001) than did other physicians. Black physicians cared for more patients covered by Medicaid (P = 0.001) and Hispanic physicians for more uninsured patients (P = 0.03) than did other physicians. Concludes that Black and Hispanic physicians have a unique and important role in caring for poor, black, and Hispanic patients in California. Dismantling affirmative-action programs as is currently proposed, may     threaten health care for both poor people and members of minority groups.

Argues that women are often perceived to be less qualified than they are, so that affirmative action corrects for a sexist perceptual bias in evaluations of merit.

Davis, Michael. "Race as Merit," Mind 92 (1983): 347-367.

Argues that under certain circumstances, being black can count as a merit or qualification for office.  Affirmative action thus does not necessarily contradict the principle of merit or constitute reverse discrimination.

*Moskos, Charles. "Success Story: Blacks in the Military," The Atlantic, May 1986.

Argues that the U.S. military's implementation of affirmative action policies on behalf of blacks is highly successful: it has resulted in a higher proportion of blacks in management positions than in any other sector of U.S. society.  Key points of its program are rigorous enforcement of integration and antidiscrimination principles and inclusion of race-relations skills as a dimension of merit in evaluating performance of officers.  Moskos went on to write a book with John Butler, All That We Can Be : Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way (New York: Basic Books, 1997), which stressed as elements contributing to the success of military integration its uncompromising and uniform application of standards of merit for promotion, combined with intensive investment in skills and training of disadvantaged blacks so they can meet these standards.

Reskin, Barbara. The Realities of Affirmative Action in Employment (Washington, D.C.: American Sociological Association, 1998), pp. 32-37.

Useful survey of the empirical research on how affirmative action works in employment settings, its impact and outcomes.  Many empirical studies are covered in this brief work, which undermine some prominent criticisms of affirmative action--e.g., that it increases workplace inefficiency by hiring less qualified people, and that it puts psychological burdens on its recipients by making them feel undeserving.

Outstanding source for undergraduate teaching.  Discusses institutional racism, with examples and case studies.  Focuses on race-conscious remedies for institutional racism in employment rather than educational contexts.  Responds to a full battery of criticisms of affirmative action.  Especially effective in response to tort model objections to compensatory affirmative action (cited below). Argues that the systematic but diffuse character of institutionalized racism makes the tort model of compensation inapplicable.  For example, recruitment by advertising to current (white) employees may effectively exclude nonwhites in general even though one cannot  identify specific individuals harmed by the policy, to whom individualized compensation could be offered. Argues that individual whites who bear the burdens of affirmative action policies can and ought to be compensated without dismantling affirmative action itself.  Contains excerpts of important Supreme Court cases relating to affirmative action policies.

Clayton, Susan and Crosby, Faye. Justice, Gender, and Affirmative Action (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992).

Unusual argument for affirmative action.  Argues that, while there is extensive evidence of sex discrimination in employment and that women know this, they are reluctant to perceive discrimination in their own case.  Thus, remedies for discrimination that rely on women to bringing forth complaints of discrimination on their own behalf will fail to rectify discriminatory conditions.  Argues that affirmative action should be billed as a means to eliminate difficult to perceive biases against equally or more qualified women, rather than as special helping efforts for less qualified women.  Most interesting for its theory and documentation of evidence for the claim that women are motivated to not perceive discrimination against themselves.

Rosenfeld, Michael. Affirmative Action and Justice. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991).

Argues that affirmative action is justified both morally and  Constitutionally as a means to ensure equality of opportunity bycompensating for the present effects of past discrimination.  Groups thatsuffer no present effects of discrimination are not entitled to affirmativeaction, nor may the remedy impose costs on others beyond taking away whatever competitive advantages they enjoy in virtue of the unjust  deprivations of others' opportunities.  Includes a comprehensiveassessment of various arguments for and against affirmative action and the rival conceptions of equality underlying them.

Gutmann, Amy. "Responding to Racial Injustice," in Gutmann and Appiah, Color Conscious: the Political Morality of Race. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).

Argues that color blindness is not a fundamental moral principle.  To the extent that people are deprived of full liberties and equal opportunities because of their racial status, they are entitled to remedies to correct this  problem.  Colorblind remedies such as class-based affirmative action, while they may be justified in themselves, are not an effective substitute  for color conscious remedies, either in principle or in practice.  Defends diversity rationales for affirmative action in higher education, and denies that the principle of merit creates entitlements on the part of the best  qualified.  Merit need be recognized only to the extent that all candidates for a position are minimally qualified.

Argues that affirmative action violates the fundamental principle of equal protection of the laws ("colorblindness").  Turning the tables on previously favored groups is as unjust as the original discrimination.

Argues that the meaning of offices requires hiring by merit.  The most meritorious candidate has a right to the position.  Race is a bona fide qualification for a job only in special circumstances.  In practice, race-based affirmative action will open opportunities to minorities and women at the expense of the least advantaged white men.

Argues that affirmative action violates the tort model of just compensation, with special emphasis on the unfair burdens it places on those who have not engaged in discrimination.

Classic argument against the use of race as a proxy in affirmative action contexts.  The use of race as a proxy for morally relevant variables (e.g. being a victim of dicrimination), Posner argues, is unjust for being both under- and over-inclusive.  Moreover, any argument that justifies the use of race as a proxy on efficiency grounds (saving the costs of individualized determination of merits) for the benefit of minority groups would equally well have to accept the use of race as a proxy in ways that disadvantage those very groups--e.g., an employers' use of minority group membership as a proxy for dispositions to criminality.  Posner argues for a per se legal rule forbidding racial preferences for any reason.  For teaching purposes, this article is very usefully paired with Judge Posner's opinion, Wittmer v. Peters, annotated below, which upholds a racial preference for black prison guards in a context where race appears to be relevant to the prison's ability to advance its mission.  The two positions are not strictly contradictory (in the first, Posner is arguing from his own premises, in the second, he acts as a judge bound by Supreme Court rulings that permit racial discrimination for compelling reasons), but they do reflect a substantive change in moral temperament-- toward a more empirical, pragmatically oriented form ofoffends virtually every value held dear in free speech jurisprudence reasoning in the latter case.

Argues that affirmative action stigmatizes its intended beneficiaries by implying that they are less competent and can't compete as equals with others.

*Sowell, Thomas. "The Other Side of Affirmative Action,"
Jewish World Review, June 8, 1999

Argues that the main effect of abolishing affirmative action is to send black students from highly competitive schools where they are likely to fail to less selective schools where they are more likely to succeed, because their qualifications are more closely matched to those of their peers.

*Sowell, Thomas. "Dirty Secrets about Affirmative Action," Conservative Current, October 16, 1996

Argues that affirmative action programs cause white resentment toward blacks.  Also argues that relatively higher dropout rates of minorities from colleges is due to affirmative action policies that place students at more competitive colleges than they can handle.

Among its many arguments that affirmative action programs have bad consequences, argues that the logic of compensatory affirmative action can place no limit on the number of groups claiming special privileges on account of a history of discrimination.  This produces incentives for individuals to identify more with aggrieved groups than with the nation as a whole, leading to fragmentation and increasingly divisive competition among different groups for their share of preferences.

Argues that, besides insulting middle-class blacks for implying that they are not competent enough to compete with whites on a level playing field, affirmative action reduces blacks' incentives to achieve and accumulate human capital by systematically lowering the standards of admission and employment expected of them.  This article is far from a litany of conservative criticisms of affirmative action, however.  For Loury also argues that "notwithstanding the establishment of a legal regime of equal opportunity, historically engendered economic differences between racial groups could well persist into the indefinite future. . . the pronounced  racial disparities to be observed in American cities are particularly problematic, since they are, at least in part, the product of an unjust history. . . .  Thus I would argue. . . that the government should undertake policies to mitigate the economic marginality of those languishing in the ghettos of America. This is not a reparations argument.  When the developmental prospects of an individual depend on the circumstances of those with whom he is socially affiliated, even a minimal commitment to equality of opportunity requires such a policy. In our divided society, and given our tragic past, this implies that public efforts intended to counter the effects of historical disadvantage among blacks are not only consistent with, but indeed are required by, widely embraced democratic ideals." One of the most nuanced and interesting papers available on affirmative action; not easy to classify as either "liberal" or "conservative."

Comprehensive and nuanced account of the history and current conceptualization and practice of diversity in the U.S. Argues that, for the most part, the worthwhile forms of diversity can and will be achieved through private sector voluntary efforts. Criticizes most but not all state-sponsored diversity efforts, especially by courts, as muddled, meddling failures.

Classic early statement against affirmative action.  Argues that, with the success of the civil rights movement in changing racial attitudes and legally abolishing discrimination, African-Americans can be expected to follow the pattern of assimmilation and upward mobility of white immigrant groups, without needing special preferences.  Adoption of affirmative action preferences therefore represents a gratuitous assault on the colorblind principle, threatening a return to the Balkanizing identity politics of the past.  Glazer has since changed his assessment of affirmative action, in light of the failure of his optimistic prediction to be realized after 20 years.  In We are All Multiculturalists Now (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), Glazer reluctantly concedes the necessity for affirmative action because persistent segregation and discrimination continue to prevent blacks from realizing equal opportunity.  Glazer found particularly persuasive the evidence on segregation presented by Massey and Denton in American Apartheid, annotated above.  Pairing Glazer's earlier and later views would make an excellent instructional tool--a rare and vivid demonstration of how empirical evidence can actually change someone's mind on a passionately held moral issue. 

Sowell, Thomas. Preferential Policies: An International Perspective. (New York: William Morrow, 1990).

Argues that affirmative action policies promote incompetence and resentment against its intended beneficiaries.  Cites data suggesting that blacks admitted to elite institutions under affirmative action policies cannot compete effectively there and would do better if they attended the lower-ranked schools for which they are qualified.  Unusual for taking an international perspective on the issues.

Cohen, Carl. Naked Racial Preference. (Boston: Madison Books, 1995).
Cohen, Carl and Sterba, James. Affirmative Action and Racial Preference : A Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Thernstrom, Stephan and Thernstrom, Abigail. America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998)

Comprehensive review of black progress in the U.S.  Argues that white racism is largely a thing of the past, and that blacks have made great progress since the civil rights era, largely due to market forces.  Remaining inequalities are due to problems such as low black educational attainment, high crime rates, and black family structures, that affirmative action programs cannot remediate.  Comprehensive critique of all race-based programs, not just affirmative action in employment and admissions, but such measures as race-conscious election districting.

*Pojman, Louis. "The Moral Status of Affirmative Action," in Julie McDonald, ed., Contemporary Moral Issues in a Just Society (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998), pp. 297-315.

Comprehensive critique of affirmative action programs.  Contains useful history of affirmative action in the U.S., and summarizes, with replies, arguments in favor of these policies.  Pojman's critique is one of the most widely reproduced in textbooks and anthologies, and is probably the single most useful paper for undergraduate teaching that offers an overall review of the arguments against affirmative action. See also Pojman's "The Case against Affirmative Action," International Journal for Applied Philosophy, available online.

Articulates a rationale for multiculturalism, including educational ref