Affirmative Action in the United States: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

John David Skrentny. The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Pp. xiii + 312. Lydia Chavez. The Color Bind: California's Battle to End Affirmative Action. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Pp. xiv + 305. Richard Delgado. The Coming Race Warf And Other Apocalyptic Tales of America after Affirmative Action and Welfare. New York: New York Univer- sity Press, 1996. Pp. xvii + 198. To the writing of books on affirmative action there will be no end.1 Every year more and more ink is spilled on a public policy question that has divided the United States for some thirty years. The three books selected for review offer a window into the past, present, and future of affirmative action. Al- though open to the charge that what follows is, in effect, more spilled ink, it is nonetheless important for scholars who study contemporary America to follow a debate that shows no sign of letting up.