In this essential book, Terry Eastland makes a compelling case that we must end affirmative action if we are to restore true fairness and justice in America. Racial preferences and setasides have distorted what our country stands for, and we must return to the only standard that is in accord with our national ideals - the standard of color-blindness. Justice was ill served when whites were preferred, and it is no more equitable when minorities are.

Eastland lays bare the absurdities of affirmative action, especially the preferencess for immigrants, whose ancestors could not possibly have suffered discrimination at the hands of white Americans. Eastland also documents how Republicans and Democrats alike have been less than honest about affirmative action, from the cynicism behind Richard Nixon's "Philadelphia Plan" in 1969 to the Clinton administration's ideological pirouettes today.

Not only has affirmative action failed to live up to its promises, but its ill effects have leaked poison into the American body politic. The only cure is to end it, and to reclaim the values that all Americans share.