For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law

By the author of the New York Times best-seller Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word and, more recently, The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency ("Provocative and richly insightful."—Brent Staples, The New York Times Book Review; "Excellent."—David Remnick, The New Yorker)

The definitive reckoning with one of the most explosively contentious and sharply divisive issues in American society, a book extraordinary for its cool reason and genuine fairness—at once a recollection of the little-known history of affirmative action and an anatomy of its pros and cons.