Bakke, Roots and Branches

An address on the legacy of Regents of the University of California v Bakke, the seminal 1978 case that upheld race-based affirmative action programs in education, recently overturned by SFFA v Harvard.

Louis Menand is the Lee Simpkins Family Professor of Arts and Sciences and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of English at Harvard University. He has contributed to The New Yorker since 1991, and has been a staff writer since 2001. His book The Metaphysical Club was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for history and the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. His book "The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War" was published in 2021 and named a notable book of the year by the New York Times Book Review. In 2016, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.

This event made possible by CWSL’s Dean and Professor Robert K. Castetter and Marjorie B. Castetter Fund.