African American Policy Forum Archive

13 Myths About Affirmative Action: A Special Series
on a Public Policy Under Siege

This 13- part series provides listeners with a guided tour of the current controversy about affirmative action. Each installment in this sequential series is structured to explore a widely held belief or assertion about affirmative action. Upon closer inspection, each belief is shown to be false, distorted, or unsupported by the evidence. As each belief is revealed to be a myth and debunked, the ensuing discussion re-analyzes the issue by offering information, research, and personal accounts from a range of commentators, including academics, activists and every day citizens. The series was premiered on the Michael Eric Dyson Show and was written and produced in collaboration with Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and the African American Policy Forum. This series is a project of the Affirmative Action Research and Policy Consortium, a project of the African American Policy Forum.

Kimberlé Crenshaw & Michael Eric Dyson

Episodes

The Myth: Preferential Treatment, October 24 (Includes audio)

The Myth: Affirmative Action was a Radical Social Policy out of Step with American Ideals, October 25 (Includes audio)

The Myth: Affirmative Action Is No Longer Needed, October 26 (Includes audio)

The Myth: Affirmative Action Constitues the Admission of Unqualified Students in College and University Admissions, October 27 (Includes audio)

The Myth: Affirmative Action is an African American Entitlement Program, October 30 (Includes audio)

The Myth: Affirmative Action Should be About Class, Not Race, October 31 (Includes audio)

The Myth: Affirmative Action Stigmatizes its Beneficiaries, November 1 (Includes audio)

The Myth: Existing anti-discrimination laws are adequate to create equal opportunity, November 2

The Myth: Individual effort and hard work determines who becomes prosperous and wealthy in the United States, November 3 (Includes audio)

The Myth: Colorblindness is, and always has been, a basic American ideal, and its advocates oppose affirmative action not because they oppose racial progress, but because it contradicts our societal consensus on colorblindness, November 6, 1st segment (Includes audio)

The Myth: Absent affirmative action, race is as empty and meaningless as skin color; it is affirmative action that creates racial differences., November 6, 2nd segment (Includes audio)

The Myth: Affirmative action is a domestic policy that reflects an obsession with race that is peculiar to America., November 7, 1st segment (Includes audio)

The Myth: Opposing Affirmative Action is consistent with the vision of equality articulated in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream of a colorblind America., November 7, 2nd segment (Includes audio)

Beyond the show

Contribute your story. Speak out about Affirmative Action. Click here

 

Founded in 1996 as a media-monitoring think-tank and information clearinghouse, the African American Policy Forum works to bridge the gap between scholarly research and public discourse related to inequality, discrimination and injustice. The AAPF seeks to build bridges between academic, activist and policy-making sectors in order to advance a more inclusive and robust public discourse on the challenge of achieving equity within and across diverse communities.

Please visit us at aapf.org

Meet the guests who participated in this exciting radio series with Michael Eric Dyson & Kimberlé Crenshaw HERE

View the web production team HERE.

The partnership between AAPF and The Michael Eric Dyson Show was a great success! Dr. Michael Eric Dyson had this to say:

As a native Detroiter, I feel a strong obligation to combat the profound misinformation about affirmative action and the quest for racial and social justice. The forces of regression must not prove more determined or prepared than are the forces for good. I am thrilled to join with the nation’s leading expert on questions of affirmative action and their legal and political implications, Kimberlé Crenshaw, in analyzing the crucial issues at hand in Michigan. This is a critical juncture, and we at The Michael Eric Dyson Show are eager to join the fight for justice on this critical battleground.