About this item
From a nationally recognized expert, a fresh and original argument for bettering affirmative action Race-based affirmative action had been declining as a factor in university admissions even before the recent spate of related cases arrived at the Supreme Court. Since Ward Connerly kickstarted a state-by-state political mobilization against affirmative action in the mid-1990s, the percentage of four-year public colleges that consider racial or ethnic status in admissions has fallen from 60 percent to 35 percent. Only 45 percent of private colleges still explicitly consider race, with elite schools more likely to do so, although they too have retreated. For law professor and civil rights activist Sheryll Cashin, this isn’t entirely bad news, because as she argues, affirmative action as currently practiced does little to help disadvantaged people.
About the Author
Sheryll Cashin, Professor of Law at Georgetown University, teaches Constitutional Law, and Race and American Law among other subjects. She writes about race relations and inequality in America. Her new book, Loving, will release in June, 2017 in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, which struck down bans on interracial marriage. In it she explores the history and future of interracial intimacy and its potential impact on American culture and politics. Her book, Place Not Race (Beacon, 2014) was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction in 2015. Her book, The Failures of Integration (PublicAffairs, 2004) was an Editors' Choice in the New York Times Book Review. Cashin is also a two-time nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for non-fiction (2005 and 2009) . She has published widely in academic journals and written commentaries for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Salon, The Root, and other media.Professor Cashin is Vice Chair of the board of the National Portrait Gallery, and an active member of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. She worked in the Clinton White House as an advisor on urban and economic policy, particularly concerning community development in inner-city neighborhoods. She was law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. As a Marshall Scholar, she went on to receive a masters in English Law with honors from Oxford University and a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School where she was a member of the Harvard Law Review. Cashin was born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama, where her parents were political activists. She currently resides in Washington, D.C. with her husband and two sons.Photo credit Robyn M. Bishop.
