I find this essay troublesome. I have almost no difficulty with the argument when taken one line at a time. But its basic thrust seems misguided. Sturm and Guinier lay out a new basis for an affirmative action public policy in employment and education by setting up "merit" as an independent policy objective. This seems to point toward a set of government policies that would likely be even more cumbersome and invasive than the policies already in place (although they never discuss specific policy). Moreover, recasting equal opportunity in their terms would obscure the original justification for affirmative action and make the existing policy almost incomprehensible to a generation of Americans who were born after the policies were in place and are increasingly the sons and daughters of immigrants whose families were not even in this country at that time.
In Not Untrue & Not Unkind, Martina Reisz Newberry embodies a compelling storytelling style reminiscent of of Robert Frost, the enigmatic brilliance of Emily Dickinson and the working class insights of the great singer-poet John Prine.
When she writes “ON THE FORECLOSURE OF THE ONLY HOUSE I EVER OWNED” she discovers that “in love's great stink and stammer, the seasons don't matter”