Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby.

• Author: Lee, Gary A.

Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby. Stephen L. Carter. Basic Books, $23. Shortly after Harvard Law School rejected him, Stephen Carter got a rush of calls from Harvard professors. His record was so good they had assumed he was white, they explained, and so had passed over him. But now they had learned he was black. Wouldn't he like to come after all?

Such is the saga of a whole generation: African-Americans who, having gained admission under special preference programs, pioneered the integration of predominantly white institutions in the sixties and seventies. In the debate over affirmative action currently rocking America, with one side decrying the policy as discriminatory against whites and the other defending it as the least that can be done for America's oppressed minorities, little has been heard from the beneficiaries. Carter, a noted constitutional scholar and Yale Law School professor, is as successful a representative of those beneficiaries as they come, and he tells their story well.

Reflections is a collection and an analysis of Carter's experiences as a student competing at mostly white schools: Ithaca High, Stanford, and Yale Law. It is laced with the kinds of stories of stereotyping that make African-Americans seethe with anger. "The smartest students of colr were not considered as capable as the smartest white students," he writes, and "therefore would not be allowed to compete with them." The syndrome haunted him--and other African-Americans--into professional life.

The author laments that he could never be viewed as anything better than the best black. That lament is shared widely among African-American professionals, and it leads in turn to the ultimate question: Are affirmative action programs really worth it from the beneficiary's point of view, or are minorities better off fending for themselves? The dilemma hangs over Carter's whole narrative, and his views about it are wildly mixed. On the one hand, he argues, racial preferences force blacks into boxes they cannot escape. On the other, that is a small price to pay for trying to combat the enormous problems facing black America.

At times, Carter's handwringing seems excessive. It has all the charm--and some of the inanity--of an ivory tower seminar. What makes his internal debate worthwhile, is that a lot of lives have turned--and will continue to turn--on affirmative action programs. After all, without affirmative action, Carter acknowledges, he would not have...