The minority (nonwhite) can tell stories about institutional practices in academia that result in unintended benefits for the majority (white). One institutional practice in academia is affirmative action. This article presents a story about a minority applicant for a sociology position and his referral to an affirmative action program for recruiting minority faculty. One reason for telling the story is to illustrate how an affirmative action program can be implemented in a manner that marginalizes minority persons in the faculty recruitment process and results in benefits for majority persons. Another reason for telling the story is to sound an alarm for majority and minority faculty who support affirmative action programs that the programs can fall short of their goals if their implementation is simply treated as a bureaucratic activity in academia.

Riverside. His research interests are in critical race theory, women and minority faculty in higher education, and class and racial inequality. Ruben Martinez is Professor of Sociology and Associate Provost at the University of Southern Colorado. His research interests are in racial inequality, minorities in higher education, and higher education in a global context. They are the authors of Chicanos in Higher Education: Issues and Dilemmas for the 21 st Century (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 3)(Washington, D.

This paper presents a critical race theory story regarding diversity and affirmative action in academia. The story's purpose is to raise issues regarding the treatment of diversity as a commodity in academia and how white faculty seek to privilege themselves in the diversity discourse. The story raises questions regarding the costs and benefits of diversity and affirmative action for minority faculty. The story illustrates how white faculty privilege themselves in diversity discourses by silencing diversity.

Racial profiling is a repressive social practice that uses group characteristics to individualize stereotypic behavior for minorities in American society. The practice of racial profiling victimizes minority persons to support a White hegemonic structure that promotes White values and beliefs as superior. The harmful effects of racial profiling on Mexican American social identity are discussed in this article. Several court cases are reviewed to illustrate how “Hispanic identity” is used by law enforcement agencies to profile Mexican Americans as either drug smugglers or undocumented aliens.

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