Battling Bias: 2the Struggle for Identity and Community on College Campuses

Here Sidel (Women and Children Last) offers a long-needed analysis of current social and sexual politics on American college campuses, backing up her study with surveys and statistics as well as interviews with students. Her book is well reasoned and readable. The first two chapters provide much-perhaps too much-statistical and sociocultural context for Sidel's thesis that America's increasingly diverse cultural landscape (a diversity most evident in our classrooms) requires the concerted and considered efforts of all to achieve a semblance of social harmony. In part two, Sidel enriches her statistical evidence by recounting the experiences of college students who have dealt with bias incidents. The students, mainly from east coast schools, express widely varying opinions on bias-much like those that inform today's campus debates about race, gender and sexual orientation. Unfortunately, bias incidents, hate crimes and discrimination are far from rare at America's colleges. But, as Sidel shows, many students are actively battling them. The author personalizes and clarifies a rancorous national problem. (Aug.)