Is Separate Unequal? Black Colleges and the Challenge to Desegregation. By Albert L. Samuels. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. 240p. $34.95.

Does the “affirmative duty” to desegregate, which the Supreme Court found in the public elementary and secondary school cases, extend to higher education systems? If so, what is to be the status of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)? The focal point of this book is the case, United States v. Fordice (1992), in which the Court first addressed this issue. Prior higher-education desegregation cases had dealt with the rights of individual blacks to attend previously all-white state institutions. The author of this valuable volume, Albert Samuels, notes that “the Fordice ruling probably raised more questions than it answered” (p. 3). This book is an erudite exploration of some of these unanswered questions.