... scholarly, comprehensive, thoroughly engaging ... Urofsky highlights various Supreme Court cases, seminal moments, and historical individuals to convey a broader view of this consequential mandate. He presents a balanced and nuanced view of the issue on many fronts, delving into affirmation-action controversies, especially in cases involving higher education. Urofsky’s extensively researched account explores the magnitude of affirmative action for the many groups which have faced discrimination.
Urofsky’s The Affirmative Action Puzzle is a comprehensive account of the nonwhite version of affirmative action. This is a complex and challenging historical task, given that 'no other issue divides Americans more.' But Urofsky, by and large, has executed it well ... Urofsky explores nearly all aspects of the program...The one major missing part of the puzzle in his otherwise thorough account is the military, which is unfortunate...This deserved a long chapter ... The nation’s jurists have been just as divided in their approaches, and Urofsky deploys his legal expertise to great effect in analyzing the numerous cases that have been argued over the policy ... Urofsky’s analysis of the DeFunis, Bakke and Weber cases of the 1970s is a gem ... deserves a better closing chapter. Urofsky claims that no coherent picture emerges from his painstaking study ... The great merit of this meticulously researched, honestly crafted work is that it allows readers to draw their own conclusions about the value of this uniquely American experiment, quite independent of the author’s own conflicted views about it.
There is a whole library on racial inequality and efforts to address it, and The Affirmative Action Puzzle does not offer many novelties. But the book, just by the accumulation of sixty years’ worth of evidence, allows us to reach some useful conclusions, and the most important of these is that affirmative action worked ... Urofsky, perhaps because he is an academic, is more patient with the trouble that universities have had in achieving diversity than he is with the problems of labor unions, to which, in general, he is uncharitable.
Focused on federal law, particularly U.S. Supreme Court cases, this narrative recollects continuous conflicts within an undeniably long history of disparate treatment ... This book purposely offers more questions than answers as Urofsky leads us to consider how law should best combat the legacies of racism, sexism, and ableism in order to open doors of opportunity to previously excluded groups. A thought-provoking read.
... unpacks decades of legal history with extraordinary insight and vigor and proves essential reading for anyone hoping to make sense of the most critical legal, cultural, and public policy issues of our time ... does much to explain the raging white racial resentment that arguably vaulted Donald Trump into the presidency. It also dissects the legal conundrum of the ongoing Harvard discrimination case that threatens to turn our evolved understanding of race-conscious college admissions and meritocratic fairness on its ear ... Trying to write real-time history of still-unfolding events is always perilous, and occasionally the closing chapter suffers from lack of access to the latest data...But Urofsky’s overarching points about Trump’s appeal and its relationship to a half-century of conflict over affirmative action ring true.
... [a] thoroughgoing examination ... comprehensive ... A must-read for anyone interested in the history of affirmative action and its associated legal conundrums.
... perceptive and deeply researched ... [Urofsky's] evenhanded approach provides essential historical context, but few definitive answers on the efficacy of affirmative action. Readers with a deep connection to the issue will appreciate this judicious deep dive.
