The Public Interest articles from January 1996

The Public Interest archives from January 1996

A new vision for city schools.
January 1, 1996... Yes, there is hope for urban education. A wave of reform is spreading from city to city and state to state. Rather than aiming to alter isolated practices or to fix one piece of a jerry-built system, these changes are meant to transform the...

From Scottsboro to Simpson. (race relations in the US)
January 1, 1996... Depressing episodes in American race relations come and go, but this one may stick. As we write, the news of the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial is still fresh, though a new drama has quickly replaced the original one. Race - not crime and...

Our faltering jury.
January 1, 1996... Once I was invited to dinner by an elderly gentleman from China. When my host discovered that I was a law student, he talked about the American legal system. "There, in the courtroom," he said, "are two lawyers. They have been to school for...

Affirmative action in the people's court.
January 1, 1996... The 1996 elections promise to be, in part, a referendum on the question of race. The passage of Proposition 187 in California has already prompted immigration reform. Now, the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) has pierced the cocoon of...

Race and college admissions.
January 1, 1996... When I began my academic career in the early 1950s, there were virtually no black students at the leading Ivy League universities. A decade after the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, blacks still comprised no more than 1 percent of...

Racial gerrymandering.
January 1, 1996... When the 102nd Congress convened in January 1991, the Georgia House delegation was comprised of nine Democrats and one Republican - Newt Gingrich. Eight of the Democrats were white (as, of course, is the Republican) and one was black. But more...

Paternalism and welfare reform.
January 1, 1996... After years of collective denial, most politicians (and welfare policy makers) have finally acknowledged the link between unwed parenthood and long-term welfare dependency, as well as a host of other social problems. But it is one thing to...

The balanced budget crusade.
January 1, 1996... A "Balanced budget," no matter that few know what it means, particularly by archaic federal accounting rules, seems to be an American icon. Republicans and President Clinton now both proclaim it as a goal, differing only on timing and the means...

Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality.
January 1, 1996... The latest and most fascinating extension of the notion that marriage follows love is the call for gay marriage. The domestication of love has gone far indeed when wild horses plead for the privilege of the yoke. The "love that dare not speak...

The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution.
January 1, 1996... When The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution[dagger] is good, it is very, very good. But when it is bad, it is pretty horrid. Michael Lind has many perceptive things to say about issues of race,...

The End of Racism: Principles for a Multicultural Society.
January 1, 1996... In The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society,[dagger] Dinesh D'Souza aims to provide an authoritative summation of the race question in America. For the most part, he offers the conventional counter-wisdom in these matters. He...

The Romance of American Psychology: Political Culture in the Age of Experts.
January 1, 1996... Very modern political ideology has been inseparable from a particular social science. Classical liberalism and economics grew together. So did sociology and the welfare state. In the contemporary period, when identity politics is all the rage,...

The War Against the Poor: The Underclass and Antipoverty Policy.
January 1, 1996... So far as many conservative thinkers and Republican law-makers are concerned, the underclass consists of inner-city residents who are socially deviant, voluntarily jobless, sexually promiscuous, and criminally incorrigible. Federal antipoverty...

One by One from the Inside Out.
January 1, 1996... The middle section of Glenn C. Loury's collection of essays on race in America, One by One from, the Inside Out, [dagger] bears the title, "Can We Talk?" The question is central to his topic, and it is his personal frustration and our...

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity.
January 1, 1996... With the collapse of communism, and of confidence in command economies, a century-long debate has ended. Markets are now regarded, almost universally, as the principal source of the wealth of nations. But what are the requirements for...

John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism.
January 1, 1996... In January of 1993, in an Inaugural Address that championed change and celebrated diversity, President Bill Clinton also issued a call for continuity. "There is nothing wrong with America," President Clinton declared, that cannot be cured by...

Real Places: An Unconventional Guide to America's Generic Landscape.
January 1, 1996... The thesis of Grady Clay's Real Places: An Unconventional Guide to Americas Generic Landscape[dagger] is precisely that if we are to make sense of our surroundings, we need to observe them more closely: In spite of the mass-production of...