• How was science used as a part of racism?
• significant theoretical changes in science helped remove the justifications for racism
• a detailed look at how science self-corrects
  

• biased science said it was unhealthy for humans
• at the same time that one of the principles of plant breeding was that mixing of quite different strains would lead to better offspring (hybrid vigor)
  

The views of university students in the 1960s:

• Before the 1970s, universities by law and custom were "in loco parentis," stand-in parents responsible for acting as substitute parents to students
• today high schools still have this responsibility, but college students are adults since the voting age was changed to 18 in 1972
  
• this included, in the example in the book, separating a mixed race couple
• these ideas have not disappeared: http://www.thestate.com/news/state/south-carolina/article126350889.html
  
• African Americans were commonly seen as inferior and morally suspect
  
• but students were aware that society was changing
• they believed the Cold War propaganda that liberty was what made the US great
• what does equal opportunity mean?
  
• universities had a mix of more traditional fraternity life and new radical political groups, including the civil rights movement
• the author of this book was the white Jewish kid with southern African-American roommate
  

Racism was not the only prejudice, there was an elaborate hierarchy of ethnic groups

• Jews and Irish Catholics were not allowed to become members of the country club
• mixed religion couples were somewhat shocking, mixed race couples were on the margin of society
• the idea of cultural diversity was spreading: that one could have ethnic pride without discrimination
• science courses taught that races had always mixed
  

 scientism: science is the best way to answer questions not only about the natural world but also about social and cultural issues