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The public and constitutional debate over affirmative action has focused on the justice of the policy, obscuring an equally central debate over which groups are to be included. The American historical context of racial injustice has led courts, scholars, and citizens alike to entrench a restrictive black-and-white categorization of race that has incorporated the other "official minorities" partially and incoherently. The rise of mixed-race identity and multiculturalism discourse have at once strengthened the foundations of the racial justice policy agenda and exposed the contradictions of this very policy agenda. This paper analyzes the "who" question of affirmative action (that is, how do universities and governments go about deciding who the recipients of affirmative action will be?) and how one strand of "colorblind" entrepreneurs is beginning to contradictions in who is and isn't counted as affirmative action beneficiaries. The paper updates the existing research on affirmative action's racial classifications by examining the Supreme Court's 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger decisions on affirmative action at the University of Michigan along with the Court's 2007 Parents v. Seattle decision on voluntary school integration policies. I argue that the increased attention to the "who" question exposes affirmative action's legal vulnerabilities. The "social construction of race" analysis has the potential to wound affirmative action policy from not only those who want to bolster affirmative action and school integration policies but also from those who want to dismantle them. Supporters of affirmative action are partly responsible for this vulnerability. The taken-for-granted, quiet method by which affirmative action beneficiaries were casually expanded via bureaucratic channels leaves gaping contradictions waiting to be exploited by critics of affirmative action. On the other hand, pro-affirmative action legal entrepreneurs have insulated affirmative action well from its predicted demise thus far by rooting the policy in the diversity rationale. The constitutional status of affirmative action and school integration policies may be at a crossroads. The diversity rationale has thus far insulated affirmative action from its predicted demise before the Supreme Court. The Court's continuing scrutiny of affirmative action policy methods has paradoxically bred new strains of affirmative action that appear to be resistant to judicial attack. Whether the same is the case for school integration policy remains to be seen. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When scholars seek to measure the "effectiveness" of rights, they are usually trying to understand the extent to which they affect the practices of organizations. Rights live in many placesâ??in the bodies (courts, agencies and legislatures) that produce them, in the minds of the activists who mobilize them, in the broader public and in the popular cultureâ??but it is principally within organizations that rights are materialized, turned into tangible changes in social practices. Thus in this project we seek to 1) create a conceptual framework that captures the protean nature of rights, 2) describe the varied patterns by which organizations respond to rights, and 3) measure how those organizational responses correlate with outcomes. This paper takes a few modest steps toward these goals. We begin with a general framework for understanding rights and organizational change. We develop some basic hypotheses about organizational response to rights, drawn from political science, neo-institutionalist sociology, and organizational theory. We probe these hypotheses using original qualitative and quantitative data drawn from a study of organizational responses to the access provisions of the American with Disabilities Act (the "ADA") and its state analogues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the arguments for the desirability of a steady-state society and their significance for understanding the present stakeholders' obligations to future generations. It cites a conclusion that the steady-state is a requirement of intergenerational justice under Rawl's theory of justice. It also notes ecological economists' suggestion that productive capacity will be limited by the first and second laws of thermodynamics and the planet's capacity to absorb anthropogenic wastes.

The article calls for contextualizing inter-racial trust by examining the dynamics of the phenomenon with different community settings. It looks at the proposition that under varying community conditions, different forms of social capital might be transferable to inter-racial trust. A qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and a cluster analysis on the Community Quotient matrix are performed in order to create a taxonomy of distinct social capital contexts that can be used to identify off the line cases.

This article examines the economic, moral and erotic threads weaved through the films "The Philadelphia Story," released in the U.S. in 1940 and the "The Rules of the Game," released in 1939. The major focus of this article is given to the political dimension of the erotic thread. The first film can be said to be a happy for remarriage, while the second film is a remarriage tragedy. It explores how society and the political landscape have institutionalized the erotic in marriage with the understanding that the erotic is irrational and unpredictable.

This article discusses farmers and the agriculture industry are depicted in U.S. agricultural policymaking. It explains that the story of U.S. agriculture in popular culture has been told through a narrative that relies on concepts and symbols, which constitute as agrarian myth. The development of the agrarian myth in the U.S. has both rational and romantic aspects. The rational agrarians are influenced by Thomas Jefferson, while the romantic agrarians are influenced by literary figures as Henry David Thoreau.

Social capital theory, particularly the work of Robert Putnam, has received a great deal of scholarly and popular attention. We argue that Putnam's formulation ignores the ways in which race is fundamental and constitutive to the structure and function of social capital in the United States. We suggest an alternative framework, one that: (1) treats race as more than an independent variable; (2) addresses the structural factors underlying social capital development; and (3) includes the role of gatekeepers in the process. Such a framework would allow us to have a more accurate, and more nuanced, understanding of how social capital operates in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do levels of trust--an important determinant of social capital--of the Migrant Seasonal Farmworker (MSFW) population in Idaho compare with levels of trust among Latinos nationally? Do MSFWs in Idaho have higher levels of trust towards other Latinos than they do of whites in the state? These questions are central to an ongoing discussion about the assimilation/incorporation of racial and ethnic groups in the United States. To address these questions, we compare findings from a survey of MSFWs in the state of Idaho in 2002-2003 and four focus groups conducted in May and June 2003. Using the Social Capital Community Benchmark survey as a contextual background, we found that MSFWs in Idaho have even lower levels of trust than Latinos nationally. We also found that MSFWs' levels of trust are low towards whites. Most surprisingly, levels of trust of MSFWs towards other Latinos are equally low. Increasing levels of trust and social capital is critical in this community for achieving greater incorporation, economic development, and improving quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]