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:



Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Color and Money Author Wins National Award for Writing on Education Research

The Education Writers Association has given a national award to Color and Money author Peter Schmidt for his reporting on education research as a Senior Writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The association gave Schmidt a special citation for beat reporting for 2008 articles on education research dealing with black men in college, colleges' increased reliance on part-time instructors, affirmative action, remedial education, and selective colleges' reliance on the SAT test.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Yale Plans to Halt "Ethnic Counselor" Program

Yale University’s undergraduate college plans to cease maintaining a force of “ethnic counselors” to help minority freshmen adjust to their first year of college.

Yale College now assigns 13 seniors to work with freshmen from racial or ethnic minority groups, while an additional 78 seniors serve as residential student counselors for the broader freshmen population. The planned overhaul of its counseling efforts calls for the ethnic counselors to be merged into the broader counseling force, which will be provided with intercultural training and expanded. University officials have said the new counseling force will be better able to serve students who are not necessarily members of minority groups but face challenges in adjusting to Yale.

An article on The Chronicle of Higher Education news blog discusses the move, and student reactions to it, in more depth. It includes a prediction by Gwendolyn Dungy, executive director of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, that other colleges will cut back on their ethnic counselor forces in the coming months. Unlike Yale, however, many of the others will make such moves as part of efforts to shrink their payrolls in response to financial pressures.