Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights
Setback Into a New Vision of Social Justice  (1998)
by Lani Guinier

Excerpted from the book jacket:
"In 1993, shortly after his inauguration, new President Bill Clinton nominated his old friend and class mate Lani Guinier to the prestigious and crucial post of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.

"That nomination sparked an immediate firestorm of criticism from the right, labeling Professor Guinier the "Quota Queen" and assailing her for the ideas expressed in her publications, most of which her opponents had not read, or had taken out of context and misunderstood.

"In the face of this concerted opposition -- what one friend of Guinier's called 'a low-tech lynching' -- Clinton backed down, not only withdrawing her nomination, but having refused throughout to give her an opportunity to speak out in her own defense (and his). The results was a civil rights setback of monumental proportions.

"Now, in this remarkable and important book, at once a memoir and insider's account of what really happened behind the closed doors of the Oval Office, the Justice Department, and the U.S. Senate, and an insightful look at the past, present, and future of civil rights in America, Lani Guinier at last breaks her silence.

"Unsparing of her own mistakes and shrewdly perceptive about the overt and hidden agendas of those who opposed her, Professor Guinier shows how the president promptly abandoned his ambitious agenda for civil rights at the first hint of criticism from the media and Congress -- and how the civil rights movement suffered a major setback as a result.

". . . Using her own nomination as a symbolic point of reference, she she shows how weak and divided the cause of civil rights has become, as its leaders have all too often been silenced by the very people they should be challenging.

"Finally, she explains, in her own words, the truth about her political ideas -- which are rooted in democracy and its principles, not in quotas and affirmative action -- and examines the state of current race relations. Renewing her call for a national conversation on the issue of civil rights and social justice, this thought-provoking book is certain to spark a new and much-needed debate."

Lani Guinier is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She lectures on issues of civil rights, social justice, and democracy, and is the author of The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy and coauthor of Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law Schools and Institutional Change.