Suchergebnisse

Frontmatter -- PREFACE -- CONTENTS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- 1 INTRODUCTION: HOW WAR AND THE BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT CHANGED AMERICA -- 2 "THIS IS WAR AND THIS IS A WAR MEASURE": RACIAL EQUALITY BECOMES NATIONAL SECURITY -- 3 NATIONAL SECURITY AND EQUAL RIGHTS: LIMITS AND QUALIFICATIONS -- 4 "WE WERE ADVANCING THE REALLY REVOLUTIONARY VIEW OF DISCRIMINATION": DESIGNATING OFFICIAL MINORITIES FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN EMPLOYMENT -- 5 "IN VIEW OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE OTHER SIGNIFICANT MINORITIES": THE EXPANSION OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FOR MINORITY CAPITALISTS -- 6 "RACE IS A VERY RELEVANT PERSONAL CHARACTERISTIC": AFFIRMATIVE ADMISSIONS, DIVERSITY, AND THE SUPREME COURT -- 7 "LEARN, AMIGO, LEARN!" BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN THE SCHOOLS -- 8 "I AGREE WITH YOU ABOUT THE INHERENT ABSURDITY": TITLE IX AND WOMEN'S EQUALITY IN EDUCATION -- 9 WHITE MALES AND THE LIMITS OF THE MINORITY RIGHTS REVOLUTION: THE DISABLED, WHITE ETHNICS, AND GAYS -- 10 CONCLUSION: THE RARE AMERICAN EPIPHANY -- NOTES -- INDEX

Affirmative action refers to rules and practices intended to give a boost to the formerly excluded and make America more equal for women and people of disadvantaged racial groups. Media attention often focuses on affirmative action in university admissions, but similar practices are found in a wide range of institutions, from government and private sector employment offices to programs that disperse grants and contracts. In all cases, affirmative action promotes equal opportunity without spending much money. But political controversies swirl around affirmative action and opponents have pressed challenges in the courts. The Supreme Court will soon rule on a legal challenge to the admissions policies of the University of Texas and the results may reverberate widely. In this context, the author draws some insights and analysis around the challenges of affirmative action and alternatives that might work. ; Scholars Strategy Network

The role of cultural analysis in the sociology of race, ethnicity, and immigration varies across subject matter. Primarily for political reasons, it has been marginalized in the study of ethnic/racial inequality, though new work is reclaiming culture in this important context. It has an unacknowledged presence in studies of discrimination and domination, but is explicit in macro and historical studies. This article surveys these subfields and makes a call for bolder, deeper, and broader cultural analysis in the field. More work is needed on cultural assimilation, how inequality and discrimination produce racial and ethnic meanings, how ethnic and racial cultures affect interests through variations in conceptions of the meaning of life, how sending state cultures affect immigrant and ethnic cultures in the United States, and how globalization is Americanizing immigrants before they even leave their homelands.

The role of cultural analysis in the sociology of race, ethnicity, and immigration varies across subject matter. Primarily for political reasons, it has been marginalized in the study of ethnic/racial inequality, though new work is reclaiming culture in this important context. It has an unacknowledged presence in studies of discrimination and domination, but is explicit in macro and historical studies. This article surveys these subfields and makes a call for bolder, deeper, and broader cultural analysis in the field. More work is needed on cultural assimilation, how inequality and discrimination produce racial and ethnic meanings, how ethnic and racial cultures affect interests through variations in conceptions of the meaning of life, how sending state cultures affect immigrant and ethnic cultures in the United States, and how globalization is Americanizing immigrants before they even leave their homelands. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2008 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]

AbstractThe federal government created America's historic 1964 Civil Rights Act during a period of low immigration. The primary goal was to create equal opportunities for African Americans by ending Jim Crow discrimination in the South. Focusing on the issue of employment discrimination, and specifically employer preferences for immigrants, this article shows how the current period of high immigration from Latin America and Asia has created new challenges and dilemmas for Title VII, the employment discrimination title of the Civil Rights Act. Specifically, sociological evidence indicates that U.S. businesses are engaging in race-conscious employment focused on the perceived value ofracial skills(special abilities of certain racial groups at particular jobs) andracial symbolism(organizational benefits from displaying certain races on the work force). Businesses hire Asians and Latinos, and especially immigrant Asians and Latinos, because of the perceived racial skills of these groups at low-status jobs that require strong work ethics and obedient attitudes. Corporate employers seeking skilled workers do not necessarily prefer immigrants. Instead, they seek minorities for the symbolic value of their diversity, for their general racial skills at bringing new ideas to the workplace, and for their racial marketing skills for growing non-White markets. I assess these developments from a legal perspective, showing that a combination of a lack of litigation and some key court decisions have prevented Title VII from regulating racial skills and racial symbolism and/or from offering protection for immigrants themselves.

Although classical theories of the state and key texts of historical institutionalism and American political development (APD) defined the American state as a fundamentally legal entity, contemporary studies of the American state show a range of roles for law and courts, from no role at all, to a constraint or obstacle, to a positive force for state development. This review maps these varying roles, showing that law and courts are most absent or play negative roles in studies of the growth of the national administrative welfare state. It highlights new studies in this area that show the American state as a legal state and surveys growing numbers of historical institutionalist and APD studies of the state and economic and social regulation, where law and courts are more prominent. It points to the important but mostly neglected subjects of criminal and tort law as areas for future study that unite law and the state. Finally, it concludes by showing how concepts from the sociology of law—legal mobilization, law/court effectiveness, and legal consciousness—can inform state-centered political studies. Portraying the American state as a legal state yields a richer conception, reveals new and important subject matter and explanatory strategies, and can encourage dialogue between scholars of law and scholars of the state.