... scholarly, comprehensive, thoroughly engaging.

Urofsky’s The Affirmative Action Puzzle is a comprehensive account of the nonwhite version of affirmative action. This is a complex and challenging historical task, given that 'no other issue divides Americans more.' But Urofsky, by and large, has executed it well.

There is a whole library on racial inequality and efforts to address it, and The Affirmative Action Puzzle does not offer many novelties. But the book, just by the accumulation of sixty years’ worth of evidence, allows us to reach some useful conclusions, and the most important of these is that affirmative action worked.

Focused on federal law, particularly U.S. Supreme Court cases, this narrative recollects continuous conflicts within an undeniably long history of disparate treatment.

... unpacks decades of legal history with extraordinary insight and vigor and proves essential reading for anyone hoping to make sense of the most critical legal, cultural, and public policy issues of our time.

... [a] thoroughgoing examination.

... perceptive and deeply researched.