In early 1997, the New School for Social Research unveils a plan to hire five new minority professors. Nonetheless, reports LF's Eyal Press, a student "Mobilization" for racial diversity announces a hunger strike, decries the New School as "white supremacist," and demands curricular reform, affirmative action hires, and the tenuring of one particular visiting professor. The students condemn dissenting white professors as racist, and skeptical black students as Uncle Toms. The result, writes Press, is "not the vision of a diverse community where differences are allowed to flourish, but the vision of an artificial, homogeneous community where they are effaced."

After twelve hours of debate, several disruptions by demonstrators, and at least one bomb threat, the University of California regents voted to end affirmative action admissions on July 20, 1995. In 1997, a judge rejects the last appeals, and the ban goes into effect. Have the regents put a stop to unfair reverse discrimination - or to an important means of redress for deep-rooted racial inequality? LF's Pamela Burdman chronicles California's struggle to implement the regents' decision.

Tufts professor Sheldon Krimsky releases some alarming figures: About one-third of scientific journal articles have at least one author with a vested interest in his research. Meanwhile LF's Daniel Zalewski reports that many corporate funders claim the right to suggest changes prior to a study's publication. In some cases, the consequences are quite serious: When UCSF pharmacologist Betty Dong discovered that her funder's profitable medication was no more effective than several cheaper knockoffs, the funder prevented her from publishing her results.