This book focuses on the legal and ideological controversy over the application of affirmative action policy to combat discrimination based on race, national origin/ethnicity, and gender. After the introduction, seven chapters discuss (2) "The Roots of Affirmative Action, the Women's Movement, and the Groups Covered by Affirmative Action" (e.g., reconstruction and the origins of affirmative action and white supremacy and the origins of disparate impact); (3) "The Career of Affirmative Action in Employment" (e.g., Title VII and employment discrimination and the unresolved issues of affirmative action in employment); (4) "Affirmative Action and the Primary and Secondary Schools" (e.g., the epochal Brown ruling and recent scholarship on school integration); (5) "Affirmative Action in Higher Education" (e.g., affirmative action and student admissions and the unresolved controversy over nonremedial affirmative action); (6) "Affirmative Action and the Political Representation of Minorities" (e.g., the 1965 Voting Rights Act and its amendments and women and electoral politics); (7) "Affirmative Action and Fair Housing" (e.g., housing segregation and federal antidiscrimination law affecting housing); and (8) "Facing Affirmative Action's Future" (e.g., central legal issues and a sample of distinguished disputants). (Contains 162 bibliographic references.) (SM)