Facinating new Harvard Press book out next month arguing that discrimination plays little part in reducing the number of minority professors working in universities. Instead, it is affirmative action itself that it is at the root of the problem:
Many universities are trying hard to recruit black, Hispanic, and American Indian professors, says the book. But they end up fighting over the same insufficient pool of minority Ph.D.’s. That group is small primarily because most minority undergraduates don’t earn grades good enough to get into graduate school or even to convince themselves that they are academically suited for careers in the professoriate. The crux of the problem, according to the book: Affirmative action has steered many minority undergraduates to selective colleges where they do poorly.