Shelby Steele is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution who specializes in the study of race relations, multiculturalism, and affirmative action. He was appointed a Hoover fellow in 1994.
Steele’s most recent book is A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America. In A Dream Deferred, Steele argues that too much of what has been done since the Great Society in the name of black rights has far more to do with the moral redemption or self-satisfaction of whites than with any real improvement in the lives of blacks.
Steele received the National Book Critic’s Circle Award in 1990 in the general nonfiction category for his book The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America. He also has written extensively for major publications including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He also is a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine.
He also is a member of the National Association of Scholars, the national board of the American Academy for Liberal Education, the University Accreditation Association, and the national board at the Center for the New American Community at the Manhattan Institute.
He has written widely on race in American society and the consequences of contemporary social programs on race relations. He has also spoken before hundreds of groups and appeared on national current affairs news programs including Nightline and 60 Minutes.
In 1991, his work on the documentary Seven Days in Bensonhurst was recognized with an Emmy Award, the Writer’s Guild Award for television documentary writing, and the San Francisco Film Festival Award for television documentary writing.
Steele holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Utah, an M.A. in sociology from Southern Illinois University, and a B.A. in political science from Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.