Description

A timely defense of affirmative action policies that offers a more nuanced understanding of how centuries of invidious racism discrimination and segregation in the United States led to and justifies such policies from both a moral and constitutional perspective

In A Legacy of Discrimination leading constitutional scholars Lee C Bollinger and Geoffrey R Stone trace affirmative actions history and the legal challenges it has faced over the decades They argue that in order to fully comprehend affirmative actions original intent and impact we must reacquaint ourselves with the era in which it arose beginning with the most important Supreme Court decision of the twentieth century 1954s Brown v Board of Education of Topeka Kansas Assessing this history Bollinger and Stone introduce subsequent and evolving affirmativeaction case law that had the intent and effect of constraining social educational and economic progress for Black people and other minority groups They demonstrate how and why affirmative action policies stand on firm legal ground and must remain protected Further they explain why Americans must view affirmative action as a longterm moral commitment to secure justice especially for Black Americans after three and a half centuries of grave injustice that violates the most essential aspirations of our nation