History 96.1
The Politics of Prediction
Professor Vernon Takeshita
MWF: 10-11:05
x-hour: Tuesday 1:00-1:50pm
Carson C214
Office Hours:
307 Carson
Thursdays 3:00-5:00pm and by Appointment
Phone: 646-2339
This course examines the aftermath of the American Civil Rights Movement, particularly focusing on those movements that explicitly draw upon the legal and political legacy of the fight for African American rights. As a model for social change the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s influenced groups as varied as feminists and the religious right. Giving new life to the legal debate over equality and representation, visions of equality can be found in debates over education, family values and the rights of the disabled. What will the American people be like in the 21st century? The answer can be found in a “politics of prediction”—that is in the history of policy debates which sought to define, limit, or change the opportunities and composition of the American people.
Required texts:
Craig A. Rimmerman, et.al., Politics of Gay Rights University of Chicago Press; (July 2000) ISBN: 0226719995
David M. Reimers, Unwelcome strangers : American identity and the turn against immigration New York : Columbia University Press, c1998. ISBN 0231109571
Flora Davis, Moving the Mountain: The Women's Movement in America Since 1960 (Paperback edition) Univ of Illinois Pr (Pro Ref); (August 1999) ISBN: 0252067827
Dana Takagi, The Retreat from Race: Asian-American Admissions and Racial Politics, RutgersUniversity Press; ISBN 0813519144
Melissa Nobles, Shades of citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics Stanford Univ Press, ISBN 0804740593
Class requirements:
Attendance and participation: 30%
Midterm: April 26th 25%
Term Paper (25 pages)45%
Weekly Assignments
Week I : Whose vision of civil rights? Equity politics and ethnic nationalism.
March 29, 31, April 2
March 31:
Documents online
14th Amendment (Section 1)
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Robert Weisbrot, “The Ghettos Erupt”, Chapter 6, Freedom bound : a history of America's civil rights movement, pp. 154-185
Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., “The Black Revolution”, June 1963, The end of White World Supremacy , pp. 67-80
April 2:
August Meier & Elliott Rudwick, CORE; a study in the civil rights movement, 1942-1968, Chapters 11, pp. 329-373.
Reimers, Unwelcome Strangers, Chapter 1
Hart Cellar Act 1965
“Chicano Protest Politics,” People of Color in the American West, pp.507-
Armendo Rendon, Chicano Manifesto
I Wor Kuen Manifesto
National Congress of American Indians, “Watts and Little Big Horn”
Week II : Implementation and Affirmative Action
April 5, 7, 9
April 5th
Franklin Roosevelt, “The Four Freedoms”, 1941
Lyndon Johnson “To Fulfill These Rights”, 1965
Brown vs. Board of Education of TopekaKansas, 1954
National Organizaiton of Women Founding Statement
Flora Davis, Moving the Mountain, Chapter 5
April 7th
Mark Gerson, The Neoconservative Vision, Chapter 4
Irving Kristol, “The Shaking of the Foundations” 1972
April 9th
San AntonioSchool District vs. Rodriguez 1973
Regents of UC Davis vs. Bakke, 1977
Week III Gender and Equality
April 12, 14, 16
The Equal Rights Amendment, 1972
Griswold vs. Connecticut
Roe vs. Wade
Flora Davis, Moving the Mountain, Chapters 7 -11, 18
Week IV : Multiculturalism/The Culture Wars
April 19, 21, 23
Norman Podhoretz, My Negro Problem–and Ours, 1963
Richard J.Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve, selection.
Martin Peretz, “Equality: an Endangered Faith”
Harold Cruise, Plural but Equal, Selection
Harpers Roundtable Article on Reparations for Slavery
Week V : Gay Rights, Religious Right
April 26, 28, 30
Midterm: April 26th
Politics of Gay Rights, Chapters 1-3, 6-8
Flora Davis, Chapters 13
Stephen Bates, Battleground, Selection.
David Limbaugh, Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity, selection
Week VI : Representation and Merit
May 3, 5, 7
Reynolds vs. Sims 1964
Takagi, Retreat from Race
American with Disabillities Act
Week VII : Family Values
May 10, 12, 14
Politics of Gay Rights, Chapter 14-15
Flora Davis, Chapters 14-15, 20-21
Week VIII
May 17, 19, 21
David M Reimers, Unwelcome Strangers, Chapters 2-end.
Peter Brimelow, Alien Nation, selection.
Proposition 187
Week IX: Who Counts? Confronting the Census
May 24, 26, 28
Melissa Nobles, Shades of Citizenship, all
Week X: Strategies and Realities
May 31 (Memorial Day), June 2
Flora Davis, Chapter 19