Making Sense of Desegregation and Affirmative Action

Abstract

This review discusses J. Harvie Wilkinson's "From Brown to Bakke" and its companion work, "Counting by Race: Equality from the Founding Fathers to Bakke and Weber" written by Terry Eastland and William J. Bennett. Wilkinson's work is found to maintain a narrow focus on its specific subject of school desegregation and the Supreme Court, but it suffers from over-exaggeration and an abundance of adornment in his writing style. "Counting" is a provocative piece that asserts the position that the Constitution is still not color-blind, despite what many have proposed, and makes an authoritative argument for such a claim.

Keywords: desegregation, affirmative action, book review