Launched in 1987 to help scholars combat the excesses of multiculturalism and help arrest the erosion of the traditional liberal arts curriculum, the 4,000-member NAS would find a great deal of its reputation established by the organization participating in anti-affirmative-action campaigns and opposing what NAS members describe as racialist practices in colleges and universities. In the 1990s, some of its members launched efforts that led to passage of Proposition 209, a ballot measure that banned raceand gender-conscious affirmative action in California.
Dr. Peter Wood, the NAS president, says it’s inevitable that race-conscious affirmative action in higher education will be eliminated. It may take awhile because the “American public generally is going to have moved beyond race when colleges and universities” continue to worry about it, according to Wood, the author of Diversity: The Invention of A Concept.
Dr. Abigail Thernstrom, a senior scholar at the Manhattan Institute, says Obama’s election increases the likelihood that race-conscious affirmative action and racialist practices, such as ethnic group graduation ceremonies and ethnic- themed dormitories, will be eliminated.
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