EDST 391-083
Color-Blind Nation: Worthy or Worthless Ideal?

• Thernstroms's America, pp. 315-322, 343-347
• Mills, pp. 1-17, 26-32 ("To look like America") {Mills book and ER}

1. The NAACP fought for color-blindness when it litigated Brown v. Board of Education and was disappointed when the Supreme Court did not endorse the principle. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke eloquently in favor of color-blindness in his 1963 March on Washington. The 1964 Civil Rights Act finally seemed to embody it. Yet, within a year the federal government and civil rights groups had begun to reject color-blindness in favor of color-consciousness. Why?

2. Based on your readings, to what extent--and how--has the federal government made color-consciousness national policy?