Why has affirmative action become the lightning rod for conflicts over racial inequality in the United States? Have colour-blind legal and political doctrines intensified or ameliorated America"s racial divisions? This text focuses on the politically driven decision of California"s governor and the Board of Regents of the University of California to end affirmitive action at the university, the subsequent enactment of an amendment to the California Constitution prohibiting the state from engaging in affirmative action, and court decisions in Texas that used the federal Constitution to prohibit affirmative action at state universities, the contributors to this volume assess the late-1990s state of controversey over affirmative action.