Skrentny, John David

(John D. Skrentny)

PERSONAL:

Education: Indiana University, B.A., 1988; Harvard University, A.M., 1990, Ph.D., 1994.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr., #0533, La Jolla, CA 92093-0533. E-mail—jskrentn@ucsd.edu.

CAREER:

Writer, educator. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, teaching fellow, 1991-94; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, assistant professor of sociology, 1994-98, Janice and Julian Bers assistant professor of the social sciences, 1998; University of California, San Diego, assistant professor, 1999-2000, associate professor, 2000-02, professor of sociology, 2002—. Visiting Professor at Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea, 2001.

MEMBER:

American Sociological Association, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

National Science Foundation fellow, 1988-91; Derek Bok Certificate of Distinction teaching award, Harvard University, 1991-93; Mark DeWolfe Howe Fund research grant, Harvard Law School, 1993; Claire Levy Schwartz and Cary M. Schwartz Foundation grant, 1996; University of Pennsylvania research foundation grant, 1996; University of Pennsylvania faculty research fellowship, 1996; Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars fellowship (declined), 1997; Laurance S. Rockefeller visiting fellow, Princeton University Center for Human Values, 1997-98; Moody research grant, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, 1998; University of California, San Diego research grants, 2000 and 2001; Institute of Labor and Employment research grant, 2002; Outstanding Book selection, Political Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, and Liberty Legacy Foundation Award finalist, Organization of American Historians, both 2003, both for The Minority Rights Revolution; Mentor Recognition Award, University of California-San Diego, 2005; Guggenheim fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 2006; Social Science Research Council Korean Migration and Development postdoctoral fellowship, 2006.

WRITINGS:

The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1996.

(Editor) Color Lines: Affirmative Action, Immigration, and Civil Rights Options for America, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2001.

(As John D. Skrentny) The Minority Rights Revolution, Belknap Press of Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), 2002.

Contributor to books, including Seeking the Center: Politics and Policymaking at the New Century, edited by Marc Landy, Martin Levin and Martin Shapiro, Georgetown University Press (Washington, DC), 2001; Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective, edited by Wayne A. Cornelius, Takeyuki Tsuda, Philip L. Martin, and James F. Hollifield, Stanford University Press (Palo Alto, CA), 2004; Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, edited by Bruce Schulman and Julian Zelizer, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2008. Contributor to periodicals, including American Journal of Sociology, Chronicle of Higher Education,Contemporary Sociology, Studies in American Political Development, and Theory and Society.

SIDELIGHTS:

John David Skrentny, a professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego, writes widely about culture and inequality, public policy development, and civil rights law. In The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America, Skrentny examines the cultural and political history of the controversial race-based programs, noting that affirmative action was initially championed by white male elites while mainstream black leaders promoted color-blind policies. In an H-Net review, Michael S. Mayer wrote that the author "has produced a useful and sometimes interesting book. It does much to explain the origin and evolution of affirmative action, and it punctures some comfortable assumptions of both opponents and supporters."

In The Minority Rights Revolution, Skrentny shows how both the Cold War and the civil rights movement of the 1960s paved the way for legislation protecting the rights of disadvantaged Americans, including women and the disabled. Writing in Library Journal, Edward G. McCormack stated that "this compelling work contributes significantly to the debates on civil rights." Journal of Southern History contributor Michael B. Friedland called The Minority Rights Revolution "a dense book in the best sense of the word, each chapter filled with a wealth of information that needs to be pondered before moving on to the next. It is a valuable monograph, presenting a novel perspective on an important chapter of American history—not from the perspective of the streets or from a handful of leaders or organizations. Rather this is a broad, detailed, and nuanced study."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, October, 2003, Margaret Rung, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 1181.

American Journal of Legal History, July, 2005, Kevin R. Johnson, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 315.

American Journal of Sociology, July, 2006, Mitchell L. Stevens, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 328.

Choice, July-August, 2003, D. Schultz, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 1988.

Conscience, autumn, 2003, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 49.

Journal of American History, March, 2004, Morgan J. Kousser, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 1546.

Journal of Southern History, February, 2006, Michael B. Friedland, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 236.

Kliatt, March, 2005, Nola Theiss, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 37.

Law and Politics Book Review, March, 2005, Jon Goldberg-Hiller, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 204.

Law and Social Inquiry, winter, 2005, Howard S. Erlanger, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 228.

Library Journal, January, 2003, Edward G. McCormack, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 134.

Reviews in American History, June, 2005, Mark Brilliant, review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 278.

Times Literary Supplement, April 16, 2004, Abigail Thernstrom, "One Drop of Blood," review of The Minority Rights Revolution, p. 27.

ONLINE

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (May, 1998), Michael S. Mayer, "Affirming Affirmative Action," review of The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America.

University of California—San Diego Web site,http://www.ucsd.edu/ (May 10, 2008), profile of John D. Skrentny.