Racial politics in U.S. subject of lecture at Rutgers University in Camden

CAMDEN --  Racial politics in the United States will be examined during a free lecture by a prominent national expert on American political thought and ethnicity at Rutgers University–Camden at 4 p.m. Monday, March 21.
 
Rogers Smith, the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, will discuss "Modern Racial Politics and the Urban Crisis."  His talk will explore how modern American policy is conflicted by two rival racial policy alliances, one calling for purely color-blind policies while the other focuses aid for racial minorities.  According to Smith, "the polarized positions of these political alliances have blocked effective policy-making in regard to urban employment, education housing, criminal justice, and immigration."
 
Smith chairs the Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses in constitutional law, civil rights and civil liberties, and race, ethnicity, and American constitutional politics.
 
He is co-author of the forthcoming book House Divided: The Structure of American Racial Politics (Princeton University Press), and has authored or co-authored numbers books and scholarly articles, including Stories of Peoplehood: The Politics and Morals of Political Memberships (Cambridge University Press, 2003), The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America (University of Chicago Press, 1999), and Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History (Yale University Press, 1997).
 
This free lecture will be held in the Multi-Purpose Room, located on the main level of the Campus Center on Third Street, between Cooper Street and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge on the Rutgers–Camden Campus.