Law Commons^™

Radical Reconstruction: (Re) Embracing Affirmative Action In Private Employment, Hina B. Shah

Publications

The history of employment in this country is the history of racism. Using public and private mechanisms as well as violence to devise and enforce segregation and preferential treatment, the white male institutionalized an unprecedented advantage in the labor market. Yet this is rarely acknowledged as a factor in the current widening economic disparity between whites and blacks. Today, many white Americans, cloaked in the myth of colorblindness and meritocracy, refuse to see the persistence of racial prejudice, disadvantage and discrimination in the labor market.

This article is a call for a radical reconstruction of the private labor market through …

Through The Looking Glass: Recent Developments In Affirmative Action, Kathleen Morris

Publications

The year 1995 saw three major developments that threaten the future of voluntary affirmative action programs in California and nationwide. On June 12, the U.S. Supreme Court in Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, held that voluntary federal affirmative action programs should be subject to the same "strict scrutiny" reserved for all other racial classifications. The following month, the Regents of the University of California voted to abolish the use of race and gender as factors in admissions and hiring in the University of California system. Finally, last year the so-called "California Civil Rights Initiative" ("CCRI") was presented to the …