What's Wrong with Our Talk about Race? On History, Particularity, and Affirmative Action

Some Mistakes in Thinking about Affirmative Action*

Once I was a member of a university council that, among other things, played "watchdog" when decisions were being made regarding whom to appoint to high places in the univeristy administration. One of my colleague's favorite points was that if a candidate hedged with a "yes and no" or a "yes, but..." to the query, "Would you support affirmative action?", such a response should be taken as prima...

Genetics against race: Science, politics and affirmative action in Brazil

This article analyses interrelations between genetic ancestry research, political conflict and social identity. It focuses on the debate on race-based affirmative action policies, which have been implemented in Brazil since the turn of the century. Genetic evidence of high levels of admixture in the Brazilian population has become a key element of arguments that question the validity of the cat...

What we're talking about when we talk about race.

It has been pointed out repeatedly (1,2) that reported associations between race and illness should be subject to careful scrutiny. Establishing race as an independent risk factor for a disease is even more complicated than the usually difficult task of establishing epidemiologic association. Among the usual difficulties are selection of a representative sample, collection of accurate data, ide...

Review Essay on Affirmative Action

College admissions with affirmative action

This paper first shows that when colleges’ preferences are substitutable there does not exist any stable matching mechanism that makes truthful revelation of preferences a dominant strategy for every student. The paper introduces student types and captures colleges’ preferences for affirmative action via type-specific quotas: A college always prefers a set of students that respects its type-spe...