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mood for fast food, but for the reader who has a taste for a sumptuous meal served with an unhurried style, this feast of vision science is a must-read. Saras Ramanethan Department of Ophthalmology University of Chicago The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions. By William G. Bowen and Derek Curtis Bok. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1998. Pp. 384. $24.95. In 1964 about 2 percent of all medical students in the United States were black, and three-quarters of these black students attended two all-black medical schools. In 1995 the percentage had risen to slightly over 8 percent. The hard work, abilities, and ambitions ofthe black matriculants bear primary responsibility for this increase, but absent affirmative action programs of medical schools and selective colleges, many of these students, despite their efforts, would not have had the opportunity to attend medical school. The propriety of these programs has been questioned from the outset, and, in fact, it was the admissions policy of the medical school of the University of California at Davis that led in 1978 to Bakke, the controversial landmark Supreme Court decision on affirmative action. Today the passionate national debate over affirmative action—race consciousness in admissions—continues unabated. Two states, California and Washington, have adopted referenda that prohibit taking race into account in governmental decisions , including admissions decisions at state educational institutions. The courts, the Congress, state legislatures, newspapers, television, magazines, and books are all sites where the proponents and opponents of affirmative action are actively stating their cases, and it is likely that within a few years the Supreme Court will again choose to decide the constitutionality and legality of race consciousness in admissions . But the debate, although ofgreat importance to the nation and higher education , has lost vitality because it has become repetitive. It is unusual to read or hear a new argument or even a fresh way of expressing an old one. Neither side has offered much empirical evidence to support its position. Now, for the first time, there are relevant, comprehensive, and reliable data that will surely enrich the debate although, as surely, they will not end it. Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, and William G. Bowen, president of the Mellon Foundation and former president ofPrinceton University, have significantly changed terms of the debate by the publication of The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions. (The title comes from a Mark Twain metaphor: Bok and Bowen state that the journey from college admissions through career and family life is akin to moving along a long, winding river with many varied conditions. The traditional metaphor of the "pipeline" gives a false impression of a smooth, well defined passage through these stages of life.) *Adapted from a review by the author in the Harvard Magazine. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 42, 3 ¦ Spring 1999 | 447 Making use of an extensive database compiled by the Mellon Foundation, the two authors analyze data pertaining to 45,000 students who matriculated in 1976 and 1989 at 28 selective colleges and universities, including Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Michigan, North Carolina, Swarthmore, Williams, and Oberlin. Bok's and Bowen's voices have been important for many years in sustaining race consciousness in admissions —taking race into account as a "plus factor"—in their own and other institutions , and their book represents an honest effort to look at the consequences of what they have advocated. Bok and Bowen state clearly their rationale for race consciousness in admissions to selective schools: first, this policy helps prepare qualified minority students for the many opportunities they will have to contribute to a society that is still trying to solve its racial problems within a population that will soon be one-third black and Hispanic; and second, it provides a racially diverse environment to help prepare all students to live and work in our increasingly multi-racial society. The Shape of the River gives us considerable data to show that the policy is achieving these objectives : • About 90 percent of all graduates of selective institutions who matriculated in 1976 are involved in one or more...

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