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For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law, by Randall Kennedy
PDF Download For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law, by Randall Kennedy
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Review
Praise for For Discrimination“Kennedy is one of our most important and perceptive writers on race and the law, and the mere fact that he wrote this book is all the justification necessary for reading it. For Discrimination is a heartfelt and tautly argued defense of affirmative action, a smart, concise refresher of the liberal position that is well worth the general reader’s attention.”—Washington Post “Refreshingly honest. . . . Beginning with its provocative title, For Discrimination is a profoundly honest work on a topic frequently marked by mendacity.” —New Republic “Kennedy offers a clear-eyed take on America’s battle over affirmative action and diversity. . . . He goes straight at the issue with fearlessness and a certain cheekiness.” —Los Angeles Times “Compelling. . . . Powerful. . . . Rare intellectual honesty and fair-mindedness . . . Kennedy deftly presents the case against affirmative action—and explains why he supports it anyway.” —Wall Street Journal“Meticulously argued. . . . An illuminating, detailed argument in favor of affirmative action and its application via race-based methods . . . Kennedy vividly portrays Supreme Court decisions as malleable, subject to reinterpretation, and even reversal not only because of the makeup of the court but because of the changing tide of political circumstances and public opinion.” —Boston Globe “Kennedy’s For Discrimination provides supporters of affirmative action with the penetrating, concise, coolheaded arguments for racial justice they’ve been waiting for.” —Vanity Fair “Remarkably astute and tough-minded. . . . Should be required reading for anyone interested in genuine equal opportunity in the United States.” —Florida Courier “This is an important book. Kennedy, who admits to having benefitted from affirmative action, will force a lot of long-needed conversations with his opinions, conversations for which he includes abundant, solid fodder. This book is about as far as you can get from a casual read, and should be approached with an open mind, general legal knowledge, and a good dictionary. If you can handle that, then go ahead and make For Discrimination yours.” —Times Weekly “Provocative. . . . Important. . . . For Discrimination offers a thorough analysis of the topic and leaves the reader feeling as though he or she has just left a lawyer’s office having been briefed on the many perspectives on affirmative action within in the United States, and is now ready to testify in court.” —PopMatters“This is arguably the most clearheaded defense of affirmative action ever written. Kennedy’s incisive analysis includes a compelling critique of a range of arguments by legal experts and social scientists on the pros and cons of affirmative action. In clear prose For Discrimination advances powerful arguments for sensibly defined affirmative action. This thoughtful book is a must-read for all Americans devoted to addressing past and current injustice.” —William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University“For Discrimination considers the definition and boundaries of affirmative action and why it is both championed and denounced in society, and is a fine pick for social issues and legal collections alike. It considers its benefits, costs, its impact on different racial groups, and provides a personal review of the policy and its many issues impacting American race relations. The result is a powerful assessment and history of affirmative action processes and perfect for classroom debate and discussion at both the high school and college levels.” —California Bookwatch“Required reading. . . . Kennedy knows where the nerve endings are in discussing the complexities of race in America . . . Admirably balanced and provocative.” —Publishers Weekly “Fair and tough-minded. . . . Kennedy continues his strong track record of making thorny conversations about race and the law accessible to general readers, discussing complicated issues and court cases in a lucid, forceful fashion.” —Kirkus Reviews“Kennedy addresses one of America’s most contentious issues—affirmative action—on two fronts: the colorblind, race-neutral ideal and the need to address the impact of both past and contemporary racial discrimination. . . . A probing and well-considered look at the complexities of race relations and the continuing controversial issues of affirmative action in contemporary America.” —Booklist
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About the Author
Randall Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his law degree from Yale. He attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and is a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He is the author of five previous books, including Race, Crime, and the Law, for which he received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. A member of the bars of the Supreme Court of the United States and the District of Columbia, and of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he lives in Massachusetts.
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Product details
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (June 9, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307949362
ISBN-13: 978-0307949363
Product Dimensions:
5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.9 out of 5 stars
9 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#195,924 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
This would be a decent primer on affirmative action for someone relatively unfamiliar with the issues, and who wanted to hear mostly the talking points of affirmative action supporters. It does acknowledge the counter-arguments, but this is often a bit cursory and -- worse -- usually dismisses them by proclamation (just announcing that the arguments are wrong or that he doesn't find them compelling). It's left-leaning, of course, but not quite as maddeningly so as I'd feared. Way too much time and text is dedicated to historic quotations extolling the virtues of affirmative action in flowery language. Overall, it's high on rhetoric and low on facts and analysis. If you're already familiar with the affirmative action debates, the book won't be very interesting -- except in the sense that Kennedy is an interesting and sort of famous guy. (I got the "Audible" version, which he narrates himself). This biggest disappointment is that I got few, if any, new insights.
Most interesting and clear presentation even though I happen to disagree with the author. On the whole slightly biased but should make some readers comfortable about positive discrimination.
This is by far the best history and analysis of affirmative action in the United States that I've read. It presents a very detailed history of the policies, as well as presenting a very fair, measured account of the different sides of the debate, and the evolution of those positions over the past 60 years. Although Kennedy makes his position very clear (he's for affirmative action, and for race-based policies as one component of it), he always backs up his affirmations with evidence and very clear arguments. This is a must read for anyone interested in affirmative action policies in higher education or other areas in the United States, and in the rest of the world.
I haven't yet had a chance to finish it - too many other commitments. But the issue is extremely well presented, and the arguments are well thought out.
The advance blurb from William Julius Wilson on the back of my hardcover reads: "This is arguably the most clearheaded defense of affirmative action ever written." I have to assume that Wilson is a personal friend of Kennedy's. This book is anything but "clear headed"; it isn't even really an "argument."Consider the critical issue of audience. To whom is this book addressed? I would expect a book arguing for affirmative action to address an audience opposed to or suspicious of it. However, the book seems largely written to address left-liberal objections to affirmative action. The chapter titled "The Affirmative Action Policy Debate," considers mostly left-leaning objections to affirmative action. I don't have any public opinion polls in front of me, but I'm willing to bet my left kidney that public opposition to affirmative action doesn't stem from it being insufficiently radical. So why not address the objections held by the general public?Kennedy's rebuttals to the left-liberal objections he does discuss don't amount to much, in my opinion. They are the kind of small, speculative points that would fit more comfortably in a blog post (or in an Amazon book review) than in a full-fledged book. Consider, for example, his rebuttal to the book MISMATCH, by Richard Sander (which I have not read). Essentially, Sander argues that affirmative action harms recipients by placing them in competitive environments where they invariably are outmatched. If they attended schools with peers who share equivalent preparation, then they wouldn't enter a kind of "self-doubt" spiral, where relatively poor performance confirms doubt, which in turn feeds further poor performance. Consequently, the number of black attorneys would rise without affirmative action, as fewer would drop out of school or fail the bar exam.Kennedy spends many pages summarizing other people's rebuttals to Sander before getting to his own (weak) counterargument, which essentially is to argue: yes the mismatch effect may reduce the number of black lawyers but "[a]n alternative goal is to advance the black community as a whole, a goal that might be seen as better served by whichever admissions regime will assure the largest number of blacks at the most elite schools" (133).In the margin of my book I scribbled "proof?" After all, affirmative action has been around for 40 years; at some point we have to move from the theoretical to the empirical. Kennedy doesn't really explain what the "benefits" would be to the community, but surely they should be measurable, otherwise saying "maybe the black community as a whole benefits" is the kind of glib, non-falsifiable argument I would expect to hear at a dinner party. An argument that can't be falsified is probably not genuine.There's also reason to doubt whether or not Kennedy seriously believes that the "black community as a whole benefits" from affirmative action because, only ten pages later, he responds to another left-liberal critique: that affirmative action recipients are overwhelmingly mixed-race or are children of immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean, who are not positioned to "provide leadership in the continuing struggle against African American subordination" (144). Kennedy seems to concede this reality but meekly offers (in my paraphrase) "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."However, if it's true that two-thirds of affirmative action recipients have a relatively weak association with the mass of African-Americans, can we really say that they are likely "to advance the black community as a whole" because they have an elite law degree, which is Kennedy's non-falsifiable rebuttal to Sander? Maybe these facts can be reconciled and harmonized, but Kennedy doesn't attempt to and I can't on my own do it.The remainder of the book contains little to discover. One long chapter looks at various Supreme Court opinions and criticizes the "diversity" rationale for affirmative action. Yet Kennedy doesn't provide a competing rationale that is as clear. Instead, he argues that affirmative action should remedy past oppression, which is variously described as "discrimination," "segregation," or "an affront to basic human dignity." Since his example of each is drawn from black history, it isn't obvious whether or not there is a straightforward application to non-black recipients of affirmative action. I was hoping for a clearer discussion. After reading this chapter, I kind of felt as if "diversity" was a more intelligible rationale for affirmative action (and an easier principle to administer) than anything Kennedy had to offer by way of contrast.This is the third book in a row in which Kennedy has discussed affirmative action. In SELLOUT (2008), he included a long essay on Clarence Thomas's views on affirmative action (that took up about a third of the book). And in THE PERSISTENCE OF THE COLOR LINE (2011), Kennedy used affirmative action as a frame for interpreting public debates surrounding President Obama's election and the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Now there's this book. As the books pile up, the analysis isn't getting any sharper.Will there be a fourth?
I took a look at the 8 previous reviews and cannot believe my eyes at the negative views of this book expressed by several of them. I would gladly give this book 10 stars if that were possible, as I think the author has written an honest and very sophisticated analyses of a very complicated and politically sensitive subject. I ran into it while preparing to write a new concluding chapter, to a book on race in American law and politics, which tries to explain why there has been so little progress in race relations since I wrote the first edition in the early 1990s. My college teaching career extended from 1964 to 2000 (with a year off to be a Fellow in Law and Political Science at the Harvard Law School--prior to Professor Kennedy's arrival), and I taught many courses in political philosophy, law (including substantial focus on law and race), and for the last 10 years a class specifically on Race in American Law and Politics. I found Kennedy's summary of the leading court decisions and his descriptions and interpretations of the various issues, especially in higher education, to be extremely accurate and fair. While I do not completely agree with everything he says, it is all reasonable. The one thing that really puzzled me is the book's title: FOR DISCRIMINATION. Perhaps it refers to the fact that he acknowledges that affirmative action really does lead to discriminatory treatment of individuals. (He suggests that the rage for "diversity" may be an attempt to package this discrimination to make it more acceptable to the courts.) I can only agree with him on this, and also on his belief that affirmative action can be a good thing if done carefully. Or perhaps the title is an attempt to sucker bigots seeking academic legitimacy for their attitudes to read it and perhaps be convinced by some of his arguments before they realize they have been "had." (I doubt that this latter explanation of the title is correct, though.)
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