This chapter illustrates the conflicting approaches advanced by today's racial alliances on issues of race equality in the workplace, as on so many other topics—conflicts that include disagreements not only over formal affirmative action programs but also over the legitimacy of race-conscious policymaking of any sort. It is no accident when these issues emerge with particular intensity in employment policy. No area of American life is more central to the quest to eradicate unjust material racial inequalities. This is why, as the chapter shows, previous struggles on racial equality focused so strongly on equality in the workplace. While such actions were hailed by many veterans of the civil rights movement as necessary, color-blind proponents came to assail these as new forms of unjust racial discrimination. Contestation over these policies became the central “battleground” around which modern racial policy coalitions formed.
