Abigail Thernstrom a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York and the vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She also serves on the board of advisors of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and was a member of the Massachusetts state Board of Education for eleven years. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Government, Harvard University, in 1975. She is also a recipient of the prestigious 2007 Bradley Prize for Outstanding Intellectual Achievement.
Thernstrom and her husband, Harvard historian Stephan Thernstrom, are the co-authors of No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning (Simon & Schuster, October 2003), named by both the Los Angeles Times and the American School Board Journal as one of the best books of 2003 and the winner of the 2007 Fordham Prize for Distinguished Scholarship.
They also collaborated on America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible (Simon & Schuster), which the New York Times Book Review, in its annual end-of-the-year issue, named as one of the notable books of 1997.
They are the editors of a Beyond the Color Line: New Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity. Their lengthy review of William G. Bowen and Derek Bok's much-noticed work, The Shape of the River, appeared in the June 1999 issue of the UCLA Law Review.
Thernstrom's 1987 work, Whose Votes Count? Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights (Harvard University Press) won four awards, including the American Bar Association's Certificate of Merit, and the Anisfield-Wolf prize for the best book on race and ethnicity. It was named the best policy studies book of that year by the Policy Studies Organization (an affiliate of the American Political Science Association), and won the Benchmark Book Award from the Center for Judicial Studies. Along with her husband, she also won the 2004 Peter Shaw Memorial Award given by National Association of Scholars.
She is currently completing a new book: Voting Rights—and Wrongs: The Elusive Quest for Racially Fair Elections (American Enterprise Institute Press, 2009, with an introduction by Juan Williams).
Her frequent media appearances have included Fox News Sunday, Good Morning America, and This Week with George Stephanopoulos. For some years, she was a stringer for The Economist, and continues to write for a variety of journals and newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the (London) Times Literary Supplement.
She serves on several boards: the Center for Equal Opportunity and the Institute for Justice, among others. From 1992 to 1997 was a member of the Aspen Institute's Domestic Strategy Group.
President Clinton chose her as one of three authors to participate in his first "town meeting" on race in Akron, Ohio, on December 3, 1997, and she was part of a small group that met with the President again in the Oval Office on December 19th.
Select Media
- PJTV, Pajamas Media, 11-7-08
- Kresta in the Afternoon, Ave Maria Radio, 11-7-08
- Chuck Morse Show, WSMN, 4-1-08
- Lynn Wooley Show, KTEM, 3-19-08
- Lars Larson Show, Westwood One, 3-18-08
Articles/Op-eds:
- The reality of President-Elect Obama, National Review Online, 11-06-08
- Gerrymandering Democratic Votes, Forbes.com, 10-23-08
- Subtle, Serious, Patriotic National Review Online, 03-20-08
- Beyond Black Politics Wall Street Journal, 03-14-08
- The Massacre of Innocence Wall Street Journal, 09-06-07
- Supreme Gibberish Wall Street Journal, 07-02-07
- Racial Politics, As Ever National Review, 03-19-07
- Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act: By Now, a Murky Mess Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 5:41, 2007
- Reviewing (and Reconsidering) the Voting Rights Act Engage, Volume 7, Issue 2, 2006
- The Souls of American Folk National Review Online, 11-06-06
- Michigan Prefers Equality Wall Street Journal, 11-11-06
- Take Ten: A decade's worth of analysis National Review Online, 10-11-06
- Divvying Up Wall Street Journal, 6-29-06
- Moving Out: The stable poverty of New Orleans has been shaken up, and that's good National Review Online, 4-13-06
- Steele Sense By Abigail Thernstrom, National Review Online, 5-10-06
- Moving Out By Abigail Thernstrom, National Review Online, 4-13-06
- Bad Standards By Abigail Thernstrom & Roger Clegg, National Review Online, 3-16-06
- Birth of a Gerrymander The Weekly Standard, 2-11-06
- Who's Playing Politics?: It's the Left, not the Right, that's out of order in Texas< By Abigail Thernstrom, Edward Blum, Roger Clegg, National Review Online, 1-24-06
- Gerrymander Slander: Democrats Cry Foul on Texas Redistricting National Review Online, 12-06-05
- One Person, One Vote The Wall Street Journal, 12-5-05
- Lessons Not Learned The Wall Street Journal, 9-29-05
- Minority Political Power is a Fact of Life Boston Globe, 8-21-05
- Roberts, misjudged The Los Angeles Times, 8-11-05
- Crossing over to freedom Houston Chronicle, by Abigail Thernstom and Edward Blum, 8-6-05
- Voting Rights Act: After 40 Years, It's Time for Virginia to Move On . . . The Times Dispatch, by Abigail Thernstom and Edward Blum, 8-1-05
- Emergency Exit: Abigail Thernstrom on why Congress would be wise to let part of the Voting Rights Act Expire New York Sun, 7-29-05
- Do the Right Thing By Abigail Thernstrom and Edward Blum, Wall Street Journal, 7-15-05
- From Brown to Bakke to Grutter: Constitutionalizing and Defining Racial Equality Constitutional Commentary, Spring 2004
- Every vote can be one of confidence By Abigail Thernstrom and Howard Husock, Boston Herald, 10-26-04 (This article is a reprint from the Los Angeles Times 10/25/04)
- Wasted Vote? There's No Such Thing In the presidential contest, numbers could well bestow legitimacy. By Howard Husock and Abigail Thernstrom, Los Angeles Times, 10-25-04
- Redefining Rights in America Wall Street Journal, 10-18-04
- Closing the Racial Gap The Ripon Forum, Summer 2004 (Vol. 38. #11)
- Close the Gap by Teaching Social Skills Philadelphia Inquirer, 6-27-04
- The Brown Decision at 50 Education Week, 5-19-04
- No, Brown Isn't A Bust Los Angeles Times, 5-17-04
- One Drop of Blood, review of John D. Skrentny, The Minority Rights Revolution, (London) Times Literary Supplement, April 16, 2004
- Brown 50 Years Later American School Board Journal, April 2004
- Education gap can be closed with fresh ideas Portland Tribune, 3-2-04
- Martin Luther King's unfinished legacy Boston Globe, 1-16-04
- Education's Division Problem LA Times, 11-13-03
- College Rulings Add Insult to Injury LA Times, 6-29-03
- Affirmative action is a side issue The Ann Arbor News, 6-10-03
- Codifying a Double Standard, Symposium: The Supreme Court’s Michigan Decisions, Academic Questions, Summer 2003
- Those who can't do, Review of Vivian Troen and Katherine C. Boles, Who's Teaching Your Children? Why the Teacher Crisis Is Worse Than You Think and What Can Be Done About It (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003) in Commonwealth Magazine, Summer 2003
- Is Affirmative Action Needed? Preferences Don’t Fix Problem Daily News, 1-15-03
- Trent Lott's Blow to Civil Rights New York Times, 12-18-02
- Schools—Confronting the Race Gap New York Post, 3-29-02
- California Makes College an Entitlement The New York Times, September 26, 2000
- Trial Lawyers Target Three Michigan Judges Up for Election The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2000
- Where Did All the Order Go? Brookings Papers on Education Policy, 1999
- The End of Meritocracy: Should the SAT Account for Race? The New Republic
Opposing opinions by Nathan Glazer and Abigail Thernstrom
- Testing, the easy target The New York Times, June 10, 1999
- Courting Disorder in the Schools The Public Interest, Summer 1999
- We Want Honest Talk About Race Daily News, Thursday, May 14, 1998
- Captive Voters City Journal, Winter 1996
Op-eds by Abigail & Stephan Thernstrom
- Racial Gerrymandering Is Unnecessary, Wall Street Journal, 11-11-08
- Examining the United Church of Christ Real Clear Politics, 05-06-08
- Is race out of the race? Los Angeles Times, 03-02-08
- Separation Anxiety Wall Street Journal, 11-30-07
- Q and A with Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom Editorial, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 11-13-05
- Busting Busing Myths New York Sun, 11-1-05
- Talk about Affirmative Action: John Roberts could make a big difference on the Court, National Review Online, 11-1-05
- Have We Overcome? Commentary, November 2004
- Deconstructing the urban NAEP results The Education Gadfly 1-22-04 (Vol. 4, # 3)
- Left behind Boston Globe, 10-26-03
- Admissions Impossible: California without the SAT National Review, March 19, 2001
- Even in This Election, It Is Not Class Warfare Los Angeles Times, November 27, 2000
- Answer the Census. The Alternative Is Worse. The Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2000
- Reflections on The Shape of the River UCLA Law Review, June 1999
- Racial Preferences Commentary, February 1999
- The Consequences of Colorblindness The Wall Street Journal
- Affirmative Action’s Unlikely Foes By Steven A. Holmes, The New York Times
- In Black and White The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Transcript, November 11, 1997
Testimony
- Understanding the Benefits and Costs of Section 5 Pre-Clearance
Abigail Thernstrom testifies before the Committee on the Judiciary regarding the costs of race-based gerrymandering, May 17, 2006
- Abigail Thernstrom Testifies Before the US Senate Rules Committee on the US Commission on Civil Rights Report on the Florida Election, June 27, 2001
Supreme Court Amicus Brief:
- U.S. Supreme Court, October 2008 term, brief of Pacific Legal Foundation, Center for Equal Opportunity, Hans A. Von Spakovsky, Project 21, Abigail Thernstrom, and Karl S. Bowers, Jr. as Amicus Curiae in Support of Respondents, Gary Bartlett v. Dwight Strickland.
- David J. Armor, Abigail Thernstrom, and Stephan Thernstrom submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme
Court regarding racial balance plans in the Jefferson County and Seattle school districts.
Please click here to read the brief.
Books
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