Affirmative Action Under Fire

• Is affirmative action essential for promoting opportunity and fairness for all Americans?
• Is affirmative action a deeply problematic, divisive, discriminatory and possibly ineffective detour along the road to real equality in America?

As the nation continues to debate its racial past and future, the phrase “affirmative action” endures as a magnet for rancor and confusion. Brookings convenes a panel of leading experts to discuss affirmative action in the different but closely-related and crucially important realms of education and employment.

This briefing is part of a focus on race which is featured in the spring 1998 issue of the Brookings Review entitled Black America: Progress and Prospects which includes timely and provocative contributions by nationally prominent scholars (including Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, Orlando Patterson, Christopher Jenks, and Glenn Loury) who assess various aspects of “the black predicament” from diverse perspectives.