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Intro -- CONTENTS -- 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.

How should we explain politics and policymaking in one of the most tumultuous and active periods in the history of the American state? Victoria Hattam and I approach the same topic from different starting points and with different goals. While she argues for attention to grass roots mobilization, I look to the policymaking process. I believe the study of policy change should begin at the center of power, where policy decision-making takes place, and should assume nothing about the relevance or role of the political grass roots. Policymakers themselves are always part of the story of policymaking. Grass roots groups are sometimes key actors, yet their impact on policymaking must be demonstrated, not assumed. Assessing this impact and understanding policy development also requires examining cases of failure along with cases of success, and I believe Hattam's neglect of the comparative framework in my book leads her analysis astray.

A response to Victoria Hattam's (2004) critique of the author's (2002) analysis of civil rights reform in the US. Several problems with Hattam's interpretation of the author's work are identified; specifically, it is asserted that non-African American ethnic groups were never delineated as politically quiescent but noted that such groups did not achieve the extent of political mobilization as was produced by African American groups. The author's employment of a combined neo-Marxist & elitist perspective in presenting a top-down assessment of the US Civil Rights movement is then explained. Attention is then dedicated to identifying problems with Hattam's alternative interpretation of civil rights reform in which non-African American ethnic groups played an integral role in achieving institutional reform; indeed, the evidence cited by Hattam (eg, a speech made by President L.B. Johnson in which he recalled teaching poor Mexican American children during the 1920s) is deemed largely unconvincing. Several suggestions for conducting future studies of US racial politics are also offered. J. W. Parker

Previous survey results from the US, GB, Austria, West Germany, & Australia indicate great variation in public concern for the environment & public interest in government spending on environmental programs. Here, the social bases of environmental concerns, the politicization of environmental issues in the 5 industrialized countries, the association of old Left concerns & environmental concerns, & the relationship between the social bases for environmental concern & cross-national variation are investigated using data from the 1985 International Social Survey Program. Regression analyses show that the sociodemographic bases for environmental concern were similar across the 5 countries, as hypothesized, & that there was a positive association between commitment to the traditional platform of the old Left & government spending on the environment. However, the unexplained variation between the countries was still large. Differences between countries were noted in the social bases of giving priority to environmental concerns & the old Left preferences for increasing spending. Alternative explanations for the cross-national variation are discussed. 4 Tables, 1 Appendix, 26 References. Adapted from the source document.

Compares public opinion toward government spending on the environment in Australia, Austria, Great Britain, the US, and the former West Germany.