"Valuable... Bumiller suggests that civil rights legislation may paradoxically exacerbate discrimination by rendering continuing perceptions of inequality less legitimate in the eyes of the "victims". Howard Winant Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science "Bumiller is among several scholars who have questioned the excessive reliance on law, especially constitutional law and the Supreme Court, as a means of solving social problems in the United States. The book will generate much discussion among those scholars interested in critical legal studies, sociology of law, race and gender relations, the social psychology of victimization, and social stratification". Darnell F.Hawkins Contemporary Sociology