Essays: Color-blind or Race-conscious Policies

Authors

Gus Castro, Illinois Wesleyan UniversityFollow
Hannah Lyons, Illinois Wesleyan UniversityFollow
Anna Eager, Illinois Wesleyan UniversityFollow
Jonathan Panton, Illinois Wesleyan UniversityFollow

Abstract

The debate between advocates color blind and race conscious policies has been perennial in the United States since Reconstruction and has recently been resuscitated in the popular press with the publication of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness (2010). Alexander’s book provided support for the race conscious side and students read Nathan Glazer’s Affirmative Discrimination: Ethnic Inequality and Public Policy (1975) for a defense of the color blind side. The debate was framed in an even-handed manner by a selection from Desmond King and Rogers M. Smith’s Still a House Divided: Race and Politics in Obama’s America (2011) , which argues for both approaches under certain circumstances.

Recommended Citation

Castro, Gus; Lyons, Hannah; Eager, Anna; and Panton, Jonathan (2019) "Essays: Color-blind or Race-conscious Policies," Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 24
Available at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/respublica/vol24/iss1/8