The minority (nonwhite) can tell stories about institutional practices in academia that result in unintended benefits for the majority (white). One institutional practice in academia is affirmative action. This article presents a story about a minority applicant for a sociology position and his referral to an affirmative action program for recruiting minority faculty. One reason for telling the story is to illustrate how an affirmative action program can be implemented in a manner that marginalizes minority persons in the faculty recruitment process and results in benefits for majority persons. Another reason for telling the story is to sound an alarm for majority and minority faculty who support affirmative action programs that the programs can fall short of their goals if their implementation is simply treated as a bureaucratic activity in academia.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AguirreAdalbertoJr.1981. “Chicano Faculty in Postsecondary Educational Institutions: Some Thoughts on Faculty Development.”California Journal of Teacher Education8:11–19.
2.
AguirreAdalbertoJr.1995a. “A Chicano Farmworker in Academe.” Pp. 17–27 in The Leaning Ivory Tower: Latino Professors in American Universities, edited by PadillaR.ChavezR.Albany: State University of New York Press.
3.
AguirreAdalbertoJr.1995b. “The Status of Minority Faculty in Academe.”Equity & Excellence in Education28:63–68.
4.
AguirreAdalbertoJr. Forthcoming. Women and Minority Faculty in the Academic Workplace, Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education.
5.
AguirreAdalbertoJr.MartinezRubenHernandezAnthony. 1993. “Majority and Minority Faculty Perceptions in Academe.”Research in Higher Education34:371–85.
6.
AltbachPhilipLomoteyKofi eds. 1991. The Racial Crisis in American Higher Education. Albany: State University of New York Press.
AustinArthur. 1995. “Evaluating Storytelling as a Type of Nontraditional Scholarship.”Nebraska Law Review74:479–528.
9.
BaronJane. 1998. “Storytelling and Legal Legitimacy.”College Literature25:63–77.
10.
BeckerHoward. 1967. “Whose Side Are We On?”Social Problems14:240–47.
11.
BellDerrick. 1980. “Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma.”Harvard Law Review93:518–33.
12.
BellDerrick. 1981. Race, Racism, and American Law. Boston: Little, Brown.
13.
BellDerrick. 1992. Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. New York: BasicBooks.
14.
BellDerrick. 1994. Confronting Authority: Reflections of an Ardent Protester. Boston: Beacon Press.
15.
BellDerrick. 1995a. “Property Rights in Whiteness—Their Legal Legacy, Their Economic Costs,” Pp. 75–83 in Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge, edited by DelgadoR.Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
16.
BellDerrick. 1995b. “Who's Afraid of Critical Race Theory?”University of Illinois Law Review (1955):893–910.
17.
BellDerrick. 1996. Gospel Choirs: Psalms of Survival for an Alien Land Called Home. New York: BasicBooks.
18.
BellDerrick. 1997a. “California's Proposition 209: A Temporary Diversion on the Road to Racial Disaster.”Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review30:1447–64.
19.
BellDerrick. 1997b. “Protecting Diversity Programs from Political and Judicial Attack.”Chronicle of Higher Education, April 4, pp. B4–B5.
20.
Bonilla-SilvaEduardoHerringCedric. 1999. “We'd Love to Have Them, But … The Underrepresentation of Sociologists of Color and Its Implications.”ASA Footnotes (March):6–7.
21.
BowenWilliamBokDerek. 1998. The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
22.
BrestPaulOshigeMiranda. 1995. “Affirmative Action for Whom?”Stanford Law Review47:855–900.
23.
BrownEleanor. 1995. “The Tower of Babel: Bridging the Divide between Critical Race Theory and ‘Mainstream’ Civil Rights Scholarship.”Yale Law Journal105:513–47.
24.
CaldwellPaulette. 1991. “A Hair Piece: Perspectives on the Intersection of Race and Gender.”Duke Law Journal (1991):365–96.
25.
CarringtonPaul. 1992. “Diversity!”Utah Law Review1992:1105–1203.
26.
CollierCharles. 1995. “The New Logic of Affirmative Action.”Duke Law Journal45:559–78.
27.
CorteseAnthony. 1992. “Affirmative Action: Are White Women Gaining at the Expense of Black Men?”Equity & Excellence in Education25:77–99.
28.
CrenshawKimberleGotandaNeilPellerGaryThomasKendall eds. 1995. Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement. New York: New Press.
29.
CuadrazGloria. 1997. “The Chicana/o Generation and the Horatio Alger Myth.”Thought & Action13:103–20.
30.
CulpJerome. 1992. “You Can Take Them to Water But You Can't Make Them Drink: Black Legal Scholarship and White Legal Scholars.”University of Illinois Law Review (1992):1021–41.
31.
DelgadoRichard. 1988. Minority Law Professors' Lives: The Bell-Delgado Survey. Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Law School, Institute of Legal Studies.
32.
DelgadoRichard. 1989. “Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative.”Michigan Law Review87:2411–41.
33.
DelgadoRichard. 1990. “When a Story Is Just a Story: Does Voice Really Matter?”Virginia Law Review76:95–111.
34.
DelgadoRichard. 1991. “Affirmative Action as a Majoritarian Device: Or, Do you really want to Be a Role Model?”Michigan Law Review89:1222–31.
35.
DelgadoRichard. 1993. “On Telling Stories in School: A Reply to Farber and Sherry.”Vanderbilt Law Review46:665–76.
36.
DelgadoRichard ed. 1995. Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
37.
DelgadoRichard. 1998. “Rodrigo's Book of Manners: How to Conduct a Conversation on Race-Standing, Imperial Scholarship, and Beyond.”Georgetown Law Journal86:1051–73.
38.
DelgadoRichardStefancicJean. 1991. “Derrick Bell's Chronicle of the Space Traders: Would the U.S. Sacrifice People of Color if the Price Was Right?”University of Colorado Law Review62:321–29.
39.
DelgadoRichardStefancicJean. 1993. “Critical Race Theory: An Annotated Bibliography.”Virginia Law Review79:461–516.
40.
DelgadoRichardStefancicJean. 1994. “Critical Race Theory: An Annotated Bibliography 1993, a Year of Transition.”University of Colorado Law Review66:159–93.
41.
DelgadoRichardStefancicJean eds. 1997. Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
42.
DusterTroy. 1976. “The Structure of Privilege and Its Universe of Discourse.”American Sociologist11:73–78.
43.
EhrenbergRonald. 1992. “The Flow of New Doctorates.”Journal of Economic Literature30:830–75.
44.
EssedPhilomena. 1992. “Alternative Knowledge Sources in Explanations of Racist Events.” Pp. 199–224 in Explaining One's Self to Others: Reason-giving in a Social Context, edited by CodyM.ReadS.Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
45.
EwickPatriciaSilbeySusan. 1995. “Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales: Toward a Sociology of Narrative.”Law & Society Review29:197–226.
46.
FanStephen. 1997. “Immigration Law and the Promise of Critical Race Theory: Opening the Academy to the Voices of Aliens and Immigrants.”Columbia Law Review97:1202–40.
47.
FeaginJoe. 1991. “The Continuing Significance of Race: Anti-Black Discrimination in Public Places.”American Sociological Review56:101–16.
48.
FinkelmanPaul. 1999. “Affirmative Action for the Master Class: The Creation of the Pro-slavery Constitution.”Akron Law Review32:423–70.
49.
GamsonWilliamModiglianiAndre. 1987. “The Changing Culture of Affirmative Action.”Research in Political Sociology3:137–77.
50.
GoseBen. 1998. “A Sweeping New Defense of Affirmative Action.”Chronicle of Higher Education, September 18, pp. A46–A48.
51.
GothamKevinStaplesWilliam. 1996. “Narrative Analysis and the New Historical Sociology.”Sociological Quarterly37:481–501.
52.
GriffinLarry. 1993. “Narrative, Event-Structure Analysis, and Causal Interpretation in Historical Sociology.”American Journal of Sociology98:1094–1133.
53.
Haney-LopezIan. 1994. “The Social Construction of Race: Some Observations on Illusion, Fabrication, and Choice.”Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review29:1–62.
54.
Haney-LopezIan. 1998. “Race, Ethnicity, Erasure: The Salience of Race in LatCrit Theory.”La Raza Law Journal10:57–125.
55.
HarrisCheryl. 1992. “Law Professors of Color and the Academy: Of Poets and Kings.”Chicago-Kent Law Review68:331–52.
56.
HaymanRobert. 1998. “Race and Reason: The Assault on Critical Race Theory and the Truth about Inequality.”National Black Law Journal16:1–26.
57.
HaymanRobertLevitNancy. 1996. “The Tales of White Folk: Doctrine, Narrative, and the Reconstruction of Racial Reality.”California Law Review84:377–440.
58.
Hernandez-TruyolBerta. 1997. “Borders (EN)Gendered: Normativities, Latinas, and a LatCrit Paradigm.”New York University Law Review72:882–927.
59.
JohnsonAlex. 1997. “The Underrepresentation of Minorities in the Legal Profession: A Critical Theorist's Perspective.”Michigan Law Review95:1005–62.
60.
JohnsonJerryJaycdevappaRavishankarTaylorLynneAskewAnthonyWilliamsBeverlyJohnsonBennett. 1998. “Extending the Pipeline for Minority Physicians: A Comprehensive Program for Minority Faculty Development.”Academic Medicine73:237–44.
61.
JohnsonWillie. 1997. “Minority Faculty: Are We Welcome on Campus?”Thought & Action13:113–24.
62.
JordanEmma. 1990–91. “Images of Black Women in the Legal Academy: An Introduction.”Berkeley Women's Law Journal6:1–21.
63.
JustusJoyce. 1987. The University of California in the Twenty-first Century: Successful Approaches to Faculty Diversity. Oakland: University of California Office of the President.
64.
KairysDavid. 1992. “Prejudicial Restraint: Race and the Supreme Court.”TIKKUN7:37–43.
65.
KarabelJerome. 1997. “Reclaiming the High Ground: Can Affirmative Action Survive?”TIKKUN12:29–31.
66.
KiserEdgar. 1996. “The Revival of Narrative in Historical Sociology: What Rational Choice Theory Can Contribute.”Politics & Society24:249–71.
67.
KulisStephenChongY.ShawHeather. 1999. “Discriminatory Organizational Contexts and Black Scientists in Postsecondary Faculties.”Research in Higher Education40:115–48.
68.
KupendaAngela. 1997. “Making Traditional Courses More Inclusive: Confessions of an African American Female Professor Who Attempted to Crash all the Barriers at Once.”University of San Francisco Law Review31:975–92.
69.
Ladson-BillingsGloriaTateWilliams. 1995. “Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education.”Teachers College Record97:47–68.
70.
LambJohn. 1993. “The Real Affirmative Action Babies: Legacy Preferences at Harvard and Yale.”Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems26:491–521.
71.
LawSylvia. 1999. “White Privilege and Affirmative Action.”Akron Law Review32:603–27.
72.
LitowitzDouglas. 1997. “Some Critical Thoughts on Critical Race Theory.”Notre Dame Law Review72:503–29.
73.
MainesDavid. 1993. “Narrative's Movement and Sociology's Phenomena: Toward a Narrative Sociology.”Sociological Quarterly34:17–38.
74.
MainesDavidBridgerJeffrey. 1992. “Narratives, Community and Land Use Decisions.”Social Science Journal29:363–80.
75.
MarkoffLisa. 1990. “Arizona Professor Sues, Saying White Males Face Discrimination.”National Law Journal (April 30):4.
76.
MatsudaMari. 1988. “Affirmative Action and Legal Knowledge: Planting Seeds in Plowed-Up Ground.”Harvard Women's Law Journal11:1–17.
77.
MatsudaMariLawrenceCharlesDelgadoRichardCrenshawKimberle eds. 1993. Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment. San Francisco: Westview Press.
78.
MerrittDeborahReskinBarbara. 1997. “Sex, Race, and Credentials: The Truth about Affirmative Action in Law Faculty.”Columbia Law Review97:199–300.
79.
MickelsonRoslynOliverMelvin. 1991. “Making the Short List: Black Candidates and the Faculty Recruitment Process.” Pp. 149–66 in The Racial Crisis in American Higher Education, edited by AltbachP.LomoteyK.Albany: State University of New York Press.
80.
MisraJoyaKennellyIvyKaridesMarina. 1999. “Employment Chances in the Academic Job Market in Sociology: Do Race and Gender Matter?”Sociological Perspectives42:215–47.
81.
Montero-SieburthMartha. 1996. “Beyond Affirmative Action: An Inquiry into the Experience of Latinas in Academia.”New England Journal of Public Policy11:65–97.
82.
MooreAnn. 1996. “Career Mentoring as a Career Development Strategy for African American Women in the Academy.”Thresholds in Education22:33–36.
83.
MooreRobert. 1997. “Promoting the Recruitment and Retention of Minority Dental Faculty: Federal, State, and Personal Programs.”Journal of Dental Education61:277–82.
84.
MorganJoan. 1996. “Reaching Out to Young Black Men: A Dedicated and Determined Group of Scholars Offer the Lure of the Academy.”Black Issues in Higher Education13:16–19.
85.
MorrisKarenWoodwardDianaPetersEleanor. 1998. “Whose Side Are You On? Dilemmas in Conducting Feminist Ethnographic Research with Young Women.”International Journal of Social Research Methodology1:217–30.
86.
MurrayYxta. 1998. “The Latino-American Crisis of Citizenship.”U.C. Davis Law Review31:503–89.
87.
MyersSamuelWilkinsRoy. 1995. MHEC Minority Faculty Development Project: Final Report. Minneapolis, MN: Midwestern Higher Education Commission.
88.
National Center for Education Statistics. 1986. Digest of Education Statistics 1985–1986. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
89.
National Center for Education Statistics. 1997. Digest of Education Statistics 1997. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
90.
NiemannYolanda. 1999. “The Making of a Token: A Case Study of Stereotype Threat, Stigma, Racism, and Tokenism in Academe.”Frontiers20:111–25.
91.
OlivasMichael. 1988. “Latino Faculty at the Border.”Change20:6–9.
92.
OlivasMichael. 1990. “The Chronicles, My Grandfather's Stories, and Immigration Law: The Slave Traders Chronicle as Racial History.”Saint Louis University Law Journal34:425–41.
93.
OlivasMichael. 1995. Storytelling Out of School: Undocumented College Residency, Race, and Reaction. Working Paper No. 2. Oakland: University of California Office of the President, Latino Eligibility Study.
94.
OrfieldGaryWhitlaDean. 1999. Diversity and Legal Education: Student Experiences in Leading Law Schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Civil Rights Project.
95.
OteroLisaZunigaJuan. 1992. “Latino Identity and Affirmative Action: Is There a Case for Hispanics?” Unpublished manuscript, Harvard Law School. On file with author.
96.
PadillaRaymondChavezRudolfo eds. 1995. The Leaning Ivory Tower: Latino Professors in American Universities. Albany: State University of New York Press.
97.
PadillaRaymondMontielMiguel. 1998. Debatable Diversity: Critical Dialogues on Change in American Universities. New York: Rowan and Littlefield.
98.
PattersonMollyMonroeKristen. 1998. “Narrative in Political Science.”Annual Review of Political Science1:315–31.
99.
PearceJamesHickeyJoAnnBurkeDebra. 1998. “African Americans in Large Law Firms: The Possible Cost of Exclusion.”Howard Law Journal42:59–70.
100.
PowellJohn. 1997. “The ‘Racing’ of American Society: Race Functioning as a Verb before Signifying as a Noun.”Law and Inequality15:99–125.
101.
PrattCarla. 1999. “In the Wake of Hopwood: An Update on Affirmative Action in the Education Arena.”Howard Law Journal42:451–67.
102.
QuindlenAnna. 1992. “The Great White Myth.”New York Times, January 15, p. A21.
103.
RaiKulCritzerJohn. 2000. Affirmative Action and the University: Race, Ethnicity and Gender in Higher Education Employment. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
104.
de la Luz ReyesMariaHalconJohn. 1991. “Practices of the Academy: Barriers to Access to Chicano Academics.” Pp. 167–86 in The Racial Crisis in American Higher Education, edited by AltbachP.LomoteyK.Albany: State University of New York Press.
105.
RichardsonLaurel. 1990. “Narrative and Sociology.”Journal of Contemporary Ethnography19:116–35.
106.
RichardsonLaurel. 1997. Fields of Play: Constructing an Academic Life. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
107.
RobinsonReginald. 1997. “Teaching From the Margins: Race as a Pedagogical Sub-Text.”Western New England Law Review19:151–81.
108.
RossThomas. 1990. “Innocence and Affirmative Action.”Vanderbilt Law Review43:297–316.
109.
RossThomas. 1998. “Being White.”Buffalo Law Review46:257–79.
110.
RoithmayrDaria. 1997. “Deconstructing the Distinction between Bias and Merit.”California Law Review85:1449–1507.
111.
RussellKatheryn. 1999. “Critical Race Theory and Social Justice.” Pp. 178–88 in Social Justice/Criminal Justice: The Maturation of Critical Theory in Law, Crime, and Deviance, edited by ArrigoB.New York: West/Wadsworth.
112.
SaphirErich. 1996. “Equality of Opportunity or Reverse Discrimination: Affirmative Action Reconsidered.”Current World Leaders39:27–47.
113.
Scales-TrentJudy. 1990. “Commonalities: On Being Black and White, Different, and the Same.”Yale Journal of Law and Feminism2:305–27.
114.
ScheffThomas. 1995. “Academic Gangs.”Crime, Law & Social Change23:157–62.
115.
SchneiderAlison. 1998. “What Has Happened to Faculty Diversity in California?”Chronicle of Higher Education, November 20, pp. A10–A12.
116.
SidaniusJimPrattoFeliciaBoboLawrence. 1996. “Racism, Conservatism, Affirmative Action, and Intellectual Sophistication: A Matter of Principled Conservatism or Group Dominance?”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology70:476–90.
117.
SolorzanoDaniel. 1993. The Road to the Doctorate for California's Chicanas and Chicanos: A Study of Ford Foundation Minority Fellows. Berkeley: California Policy Seminar.
118.
SomersMargaret. 1992. “Narrativity, Narrative Identity, and Social Action: Rethinking English Working-Class Formation.”Social Science History16:591–630.
119.
SomersMargaret. 1994. “The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach.”Theory and Society23:605–49.
120.
SomersMargaret. 1995. “Narrating and Naturalizing Civil Society and Citizenship Theory: The Place of Political Culture and the Public Sphere.”Sociological Theory13:229–74.
121.
SteeleClaudeGreenStephen. 1976. “Affirmative Action and Academic Hiring: A Case Study of a Value Conflict.”Journal of Higher Education47:413–35.
122.
SturmSusanGuinierLani. 1996. “The Future of Affirmative Action: Reclaiming the Innovative Ideal.”California Law Review84:953–1036.
123.
TierneyWilliam. 1996. “Affirmative Action in California: Looking Back, Looking Forward in Public Academe.”Journal of Negro Education65:122–32.
124.
TurnerCarlineMyersSamuel. 2000. Faculty of Color in Academe: Bittersweet Success. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
125.
ValdesFrancisco. 1997. “Under Construction: LatCrit Consciousness, Community and Theory.”California Law Review85:1089–1142.
126.
ValverdeLeonardCastenellLouis eds. 1998. The Multicultural Campus: Strategies for Transforming Higher Education. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
127.
Van MaanenJohn. 1988. Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
128.
VargasSylvia. 1998. “Deconstructing Homo[geneous] Americanus: The White Ethnic Immigrant Narrative and Its Exclusionary Effect.”Tulane Law Review72:1493–1596.
129.
VasquezJesse. 1992. “Embattled Scholars in the Academy: A Shared Odyssey.”Callaloo15:1039–51.
130.
VerdugoRichard. 1995. “Racial Stratification and the Use of Hispanic Faculty as Role Models.”Journal of Higher Education66:669–85.
131.
WasserstromRichard. 1977. “Racism, Sexism, and Preferential Treatment: An Approach to the Topics.”UCLA Law Review24:581–622.
132.
WellmanDavid. 1997. “Minstrel Shows, Affirmative Action Talk, and Angry White Men: Marking Racial Otherness in the 1990s.” Pp. 311–31 in Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism, edited by FrankenbergR.Durham: Duke University Press.
133.
WilkinsDavidGulatiG. Mitu. 1996. “Why Are There So Few Black Lawyers in Corporate Law Firms? An Institutional Analysis.”California Law Review84:496–625.
134.
WilliamsRobert. 1989. “Documents of Barbarism: The Contemporary Legacy of European Racism and Colonialism in the Narrative Traditions of Federal Indian Law.”Arizona Law Review31:237–78.
135.
WilliamsRobert. 1990. The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press.
136.
WilsonJohn. 1995. “The Myth of Reverse Discrimination in Higher Education.”Journal of Blacks in Higher Education10:88–93.
137.
YoungJoyce. 1984. “Black Women Faculty in Academia: Strategies for Career Leadership Development.”Educational and Psychological Research4:133–45.
