Full Description
In 2006, Michigan voters banned affirmative action preferences in public contracting, education, and employment. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) vote was preceded by years of campaigning, legal maneuvers, media coverage, and public debate. Ending Racial Preferences: The Michigan Story relates what happened from the vantage point of Toward A Fair Michigan (TAFM), a nonprofit organization that provided a civic forum for the discussion of preferences. The book offers a timely "inside look" into how TAFM fostered dialogue by emphasizing education over indoctrination, reason over rhetoric, and civil debate over protest.
Ending Racial Preferences opens with a review of the campaigns for and against similar initiatives in California, Florida, Washington, and the city of Houston. The book then delivers an in-depth historical account of the MCRI-from its inception in 2003 through the first year following its passage in 2006. Readers are invited to decide for themselves whether affirmative action preferences are good for America. Carol M. Allen reproduces the remarks delivered at a TAFM debate, along with a compilation of pro and con responses by 14 experts to 50 questions about preferences. This book will be of interest to those working in the fields of public policy and state politics.
Contents
Chapter 1 Contents
Chapter 2 Foreword
Chapter 3 Preface
Chapter 4 Acknowledgments
Chapter 5 1 What Came Before
Chapter 6 2 Creating a Fair Michigan, Part I: The Ballot Petition Process
Chapter 7 3 Creating a Fair Michigan, Part II: The Election Campaigns
Chapter 8 4 The Debates: A Simple Dialogue
Chapter 9 5 "Ask the Experts": Questions from the Debates
Chapter 10 6 What Followed?
Chapter 11 7 Moving from Diversity to Inclusion: The Way Forward
Chapter 12 Appendix I: Debates Sponsored by Toward A Fair Michigan
Chapter 13 Appendix II: Audience Feedback from the TAFM Debates
Chapter 14 Appendix III: Brief of Amicus Curiae
Chapter 15 Bibliography
Chapter 16 About the Author and Contributor
