This week’s Supreme Court decision to uphold Michigan’s ban on affirmative action in college and university admissions stirred up a lot of legal controversy, and will likely lead to more court cases about these policies in other states. In the wake of conversations about constitutionality, however, it is often easy to miss the problems that affirmative action is meant to be correcting.

Racial inequality, especially in the workplace, is very real. Employers regularly make decisions based on race which clash with existing civil rights law.

•  John D. Skrentny. 2014. After Civil Rights: Racial Realism in the New American Workplace. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Most Americans tend to think of diversity in very general, open and optimistic terms, but this “happy talk” often makes it difficult to directly address underlying racial attitudes—and the inequalities they produce—with policy changes.

•  Joyce Bell and Douglas Hartmann. 2007. “Diversity in Everyday Discourse: The Cultural Ambiguities and Consequences of ‘Happy Talk.’” American Sociological Review 72(6): 895-914