"A fresh, highly readable, first-rate history."
- Sanford D Horowitt - San Francisco Chronicle,
"A penetrating new analysis."
- Nick Kotz - New York Times Book Review,
"Ira Katznelson has made a major contribution to the affirmative action debate…[His] book makes as strong a case as I have ever seen for vigorous action to bring about equal opportunities for African-Americans."
- George M. Frederickson - New York Review of Books,
"A gem of a book."
- David Oshinsky - The Nation,
"Katznelson’s explosive analysis provides us with a new and painful understanding of how politics and race intersect."
- Henry Louis Gates Jr.,
"When Affirmative Action Was White was one of the first books that helped me concretely understand how racism was embedded into federal policy."
- Clint Smith, author of Counting Descent,