What people say about Color and Money-
"Anyone interested in the inequities of the selective college admissions process will find Color and Money clear-eyed, hard-hitting, enlightening, and informative."--Rachel Toor, author of Admissions Confidential: An Insider's Account of the Elite College Selection Process.
"For those concerned about why the march toward social justice in America has faltered badly for nearly forty years, Peter Schmidt's Color and Money is a highly instructive--and greatly disturbing--guidepost." --Richard Kluger, author of Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality.
"An indispensible guide to the debate over affirmative action in the United States."--Michael Lind, author of The Next American Nation.
"This book is a must read for anyone concerned with access to higher education, especially to the nation’s elite universities, as well as with larger questions of social policy and social justice."--Terry MacTaggart, Former Chancellor, University of Maine System
"Books on the highly-charged issue of affirmative action are usually one-sided and inflammatory. Peter Schmidt's Color and Money is a wonderful exception. It provides an honest and fair examination that is also passionate and illuminating."--Richard D. Kahlenberg, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation, and author of The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action
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Peter Schmidt is available as a speaker
Peter Schmidt is available to speak at colleges, bookstores, schools, churches, and at gatherings of education associations. His past speaking engagements are listed at the bottom of this Web site. If interested in having him appear, e-mail him at schmidt_peter@msn.com. He also is available as an expert source for journalists covering affirmative action. Those on a tight deadline should email him at peter.schmidt@chronicle.com.
Hear interviews with Peter Schmidt
Jack Lessenberry of Michigan Public Radio talked to Peter Schmidt about
Color and Money in August. You can hear the interview
here. Reading the book inspired Jack to write an essay on it, which you can read
here. You also can hear Peter Schmidt talk about his book on the NPR program
Justice Talking and in a
Chronicle of Higher Education podcast.
Color and Money Is a College Course!
Many college professors are now using
Color and Money in their classes, but
Jack Dougherty, the director of the educational studies program at Trinity College in Connecticut, has gone a big step beyond. He has decided to name a freshman seminar "Color and Money" and to structure the class around the book. He has graciously agreed to share his syllabus, available
here, for faculty members at other colleges who may have the same idea.
THE COLOR AND MONEY BLOG:
The Phoenix of Boston has an article in yesterday's issue suggesting that John Edwards' lack of a Harvard or Yale degree is greatly hurting his chances of getting the Democratic presidential nomination. The article, by Steven Stark, notes that the last Democratic nominee who did not attend one of those institutions for either undergraduate or graduate school was Walter Mondale, back in 1984. The article asserts that "
fundraising (particularly now that all serious candidates spurn public funding) and primary politics have been taken over by the well-educated elites for whom Harvard and Yale are the Holy Grails," and that "the elite press is now dominated by former classmates of the candidates" with prestigious Ivy League pedigrees. It says:
To these people, Edwards doesn’t pass muster. It’s not that he’s not smart — he clearly has an impressive intellect. It’s much more subtle and insidious: if there’s one unstated lesson these select schools teach you, regardless of how much money your family actually has, it’s how to act like a member of the upper class.
The full text of the article is available here.
One wrinkle that Stark missed is that, as discussed in Color and Money, Edwards harshly criticized legacy admissions preferences when he campaigned in 2004. Such a stand probably seemed downright threatening to some of those who earned degrees from elite institutions and hope to see their children follow their footsteps into their alma mater.
