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In April 1968, two Berkeley campus unions—the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1695 representing clerical, technical, and professional workers, and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 1570 representing graduate students—held a work-stoppage and a teach-in on "campus racism" to honor the memory of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. who had been tragically assassinated in Memphis. Inspired by King's work and the AFSCME sanitation workers strike that he supported, the teach-in became a series of workshops that ultimately led to the development of a "white paper" with statistical data highlighting the ways the university harbored racism in its employment practices and in its admission of undergraduate and graduate students. Among its many demands, it called for the University: "to hire black, brown and red workers until the ratio of employees from these groups equals the ratio in the population; bring minority student enrollment and employment up to population ratios . . . publish the University census report showing the percentage of black, brown, and red employees by department; and make an additional report showing the classifications and promotions of black, brown, and red people in each department."

AbstractThis Teaching and Learning Guide is designed to accompany my Sociology Compass article on affirmative action. The sample syllabus is organized historically beginning with FDR's New Deal and the first use of the term affirmative action and ending with the most recent Supreme Court's deliberations on this policy. In doing so, it attends not only to the varied meanings and forms of affirmative action across time but also the different interest groups arguing for and against this remedial policy. Along the way, it explores the changing history of race relations in the USA, considers the value of personal narratives as sources in exploring meaning and personhood, examines the ways the news media has framed the debate in contemporary America, and finally, speculates about the future of this controversial policy.

AbstractAmong scholars in sociology and history, the backlash against affirmative action has been blamed on White working‐class Americans. What has received far less attention is the individual and collective institutional role(s) played by the White middle and upper middle‐class in backlash politics. Given that individuals in these social classes have far greater institutional power than White working‐class Americans, their beliefs and practices deserve sustained critical attention, and, as the few existing research studies demonstrate, White middle‐class and upper middle‐class Americans have played an influential role in backlash politics. Part of the reason for this gap in the literature is that these groups are more difficult to access as research subjects. Gaining access to this population may require working through many levels of a bureaucratic organization designed to protect their time and privacy. Moreover, when interviewed, these Americans are more likely than their working‐class counterparts to mask racist sentiments through the polite language of "color blindness." Research methods that complement surveys and in‐depth interviews are recommended as strategies for probing White middle and upper middle‐class Americans' deeply hidden beliefs.

An interview with Joan Acker, professor emeritus at the University of Oregon. Acker's work has been on the cutting edge of feminist scholarship for more than 35 years. Acker talks about such topics as her theoretical training, welfare reform, feminist sociology, and her informal campaign to end football.

Résumé Malgré le caractère invisible des émotions au travail chez les assistantes juridiques, cette dimension du travail présente des conséquences importantes pour la reproduction du procès de travail dans les grandes firmes bureaucratiques et pour le bien-être psychologique des assistantes juridiques. Ces dernières ont pour fonction de soutenir la stabilité émotive des avocats pour lesquels elles travaillent, à travers un traitement respectueux et attentionné. En soutenant les avocats, les assistantes juridiques reproduisent les rapports sociaux de genre à l'intérieur des cabinets d'avocats. La plupart des avocats qui reçoivent les soins et le soutien sont des hommes et la majorité des assistants juridiques qui prodiguent ces services émotifs sont des femmes. De cette façon, la maîtrise des émotions au travail exigée des assistantes juridiques sert à reproduire les structures sexistes des cabinets d'avocats.

Examines whites' "possessive investment in whiteness" by exploring how it is created, maintained, & reproduced, discursive practices termed "racing for innocence," which is linked to a broader US cultural discourse on liberal individualism. Specifically, 1988/89 & 1999 ethnographic & interview data on the lawyers working (or formerly working) in a San Francisco Bay Area firm are drawn on to explore the ramifications of these practices, contending that this race for innocence is one dimension of affirmative action backlash. The literature on whiteness studies & affirmative action is briefly reviewed before comparing the narratives of white male lawyers who remained with their firm to those of a particular African American male lawyer who left. Revealed are very different narratives surrounding the African American's departure from the firm, exposing how the white lawyers, by virtue of their social position, unwittingly contributed to the working climate that pushed the African American out. Theorizing that whiteness is a set of unequal social relations & practices, it is asserted that these white lawyers' "race for innocence" reproduced the structural inequality of the workplace, denying accountability for racism while partaking in it. 1 Table. J. Zendejas

Despite the invisibility of emotional labor among paralegals, this dimension of work has significant consequences for the reproduction of the labor process in the large bureaucratic firm & for the psychological well-being of paralegals. These legal workers function to support & maintain the emotional stability of the lawyers for whom they work through deferential treatment & caretaking. By affirming the status of lawyers, paralegals also reproduce gender relations in the law firm. Most attorneys who receive caretaking & support are men, & the majority of the legal assistants who provide these emotional services are women. In this way, the emotional labor required of paralegals serves to reproduce the sex-segregated structure of law firms. 26 References. Adapted from the source document.

Researcher ethnographic power & authority are examined through discussion of fieldwork experiences in two San Francisco, CA, law firms. The classic conception of ethnographic authority suggests that ethnographers have textual & social authority over their Ss. Such a conceptualization does not allow for the situational & relational factors that impact ethnographic authority. In one case, the female researcher's status in a male-dominated law firm represented a challenge to authority & required renegotiation of interactions with male elites. In another case, the researcher's covert status as a fieldworker prompted ethnical concerns & created tension between deceiving & exploiting people in the organization under study & achieving the goals of the ethnographic inquiry. Formation of researcher identity was vital to the ethnographic process & to unearthing the relationship between gender & power manifested in the organizations under study. 26 References. D. Generoli