This book follows the debates over Asian-American admissions at Berkeley University (California), the University of California at Los Angeles, Brown University in Providence (Rhode Island), Stanford University (California), Harvard University in Cambridge (Massachusetts), and Princeton University (New Jersey). The book explores important developments in the politics of race including changes in ethnic coalitions, reconstruction of the debate over affirmative action, and the conservative challenge to the civil rights agenda of the 1960s. Also examined are the history and significance of the Asian-American admission controversy on American race relations both inside and outside of higher education. The book argues that the controversy encouraged a shift in affirmative action policy away from racial preferences toward class preferences. This development is identified as a retreat from race, which signals not only a policy shift but also the increasing reluctance of intellectuals and politicians to identify social problems as explicitly racial problems. Moving beyond the university setting, the author explores the significance of the retreat from race as likely to fail at its promise of easing racial tension and promoting racial equality. Extensive notes are provided. (Contains over 350 references.) (JB)