Kahlenberg, Richard D. 1963- (Richard Dawson Kahlenberg)

PERSONAL:

Born June 8, 1963, in Washington, DC; son of Richard W. and Jeannette Kahlenberg; married Rebecca Rozen, August 23, 1987; children: Cynthia Ann, Jessica Jane, Caroline Ruth, Amanda Mollie. Education: Harvard University, A.B. (magna cum laude), 1985, J.D. (cum laude), 1989; University of Nairobi, certificate in mass communication, 1986. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Presbyterian.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Bethesda, MD. Office—Century Foundation, 1333 H St. NW, 10th Fl., Washington, DC 20005.

CAREER:

Office of Senator Charles S. Robb, Washington, DC, legislative assistant, 1989-94; Center for National Policy, Washington, DC, fellow, 1996-98; Century Foundation, Washington, DC, senior fellow, 1998—. George Washington University, visiting associate professor, 1993-94.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Rotary International fellow in Kenya, 1986; The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post.

WRITINGS:

Broken Contract: A Memoir of Harvard Law School, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1992, 2nd edition with new afterword by the author, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, MA), 1999.

The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action, Basic Books (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor) A Notion at Risk: Preserving Public Education as an Engine for Social Mobility, Century Foundation Press (Washington, DC), 2000.

All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice, Brookings Institution Press (Washington, DC), 2001.

(Editor) Public School Choice vs. Private School Vouchers, Century Foundation Press (Washington, DC), 2003.

(Editor) America's Untapped Resource: Low-Income Students in Higher Education, Century Foundation Press (Washington, DC), 2004.

Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Law professor and public policy expert Richard D. Kahlenberg writes on issues of race and class in America. One of Kahlenberg's books, The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action, deals with the ongoing controversy surrounding affirmative action. This initiative, launched in the 1970s in an attempt to level the playing field upon which whites and minorities compete for jobs and university admission, does not succeed in providing equal opportunity, the author asserts, nor does it contribute to a color-blind American culture. Instead, Kahlenberg suggests, it is class, not race, that marks the largest signifier of economic success: A child from a poor family, no matter what his race or ethnicity, is likely to remain poor under current affirmative action policies.

In The Remedy, Kahlenberg "traces affirmative action's history and outlines his class-based approach," according to a Booklist review by Mary Carroll. In the author's words, shifting affirmative action's emphasis from race to class would "foster social cohesion, reunite political coalitions for progressive change, and get at the root problems of inequality, which go beyond race to the bedrock issue of class." "Whether race or class (or gender, for that matter) is closer to ‘bedrock’ is just one issue on which … many Americans disagree," added Carroll in her article.

Carroll's note on gender-based hiring was a thread also noticed by Patti Roberts in Labor Studies Journal. Writing about The Remedy, Roberts noted that Kahlenberg "never addresses affirmative action's impact on sex-based discrimination"; what's more, she added, his argument that a class-based strategy would better address inequality than race-based initiatives "ignores the research already done on the subject." Still, said Roberts, Kahlenberg is to be commended for producing a "thoughtful treatment of a complex subject."

Washington Monthly contributor David Mastio also found much to commend in The Remedy. For one thing, the touchy subject of race is "burdened by more than its share of writers who care not a whit about changing minds, only scoring points. Richard Kahlenberg is not one of them." His work, Mastio continued, "is an honest and kind critique of racial entitlements—honest because it leaves no doubt about the consequences of the current regime, and kind because it offers an effective alternative." The point of Kahlenberg's book, said Mastio, "is not to tear down affirmative action but to reinvigorate it." And while the reviewer joined others in noting a lack of practical evidence supporting Kahlenberg's vision of class-based affirmative action, he concluded that the author has contributed "a very good book, which answers a lot of questions and ought to change many minds." The Remedy, stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer, "reminds us that class-based coalitions may be the way to seek a more just America."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Kahlenberg, Richard D., Broken Contract: A Memoir of Harvard Law School, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1992, 2nd edition, with new afterword by the author, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, MA), 1999.

Kahlenberg, Richard D., The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action, Basic Books (New York, NY), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1996, Mary Carroll, review of The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action, p. 1646.

Harvard Law Review, June, 1992, Robert W. Gordon, review of Broken Contract: A Memoir of Harvard Law School, pp. 2041-2060.

Iowa Law Review, January, 1993, Arthur D. Austin, review of Broken Contract, pp. 427-432.

Labor Studies Journal, fall, 1996, Patti R. Roberts, review of The Remedy, p. 109.

Library Journal, January, 1992, Elizabeth Fielder Olson, review of Broken Contract, p. 154; December, 2000, Leroy Hommerding, review of All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice, p. 158.

New York Times Book Review, May 10, 1992, review of Broken Contract, p. 16; July 14, 1996, William Julius Wilson, review of The Remedy, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly, April 22, 1996, review of The Remedy, p. 52.

Washington Monthly, September, 1996, David M. Mastio, review of The Remedy, p 51.

Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, winter, 1993, Austin Sarat, review of Broken Contract, pp. 201-218.