"The Death of Affirmative Action: Rethinking the Debate" by Leah Wright
Channel: WesleyanThinksBig
Date: 2012-05-02

More info: www.wesleyanthinksbig.com


LEAH M. WRIGHT is an Assistant Professor of History & African American Studies at Wesleyan University. She received her B.A. in history from Dartmouth College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Princeton University. Her research interests include 20th Century United States political and social history and modern African American history. Her writing has been published in the Journal of Federal History, Souls, Oxford African American Studies Center Online/African American National Biography, as well as in the anthology Making the South Red: When, Where, Why, and How the South Became Republican. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Mellon Mays Program, the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the National Archives, the several presidential libraries. Currently, Leah is finishing a book, The Loneliness of the Black Conservative: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power; her project offers new insight into the relationship between African American politics, the American civil rights movement, and the Republican Party.
     At Wesleyan, Leah teaches courses on modern African American history, 20th century United States history, American political history, the civil rights movement, and black political thought. She is a spring 2012 faculty fellow at the Wesleyan Center for the Humanities, where she is teaching a seminar course "Race, Rage, Riots, and Backlash: 20th-Century Protest Movements."