Cedric Herring (Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1985) is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois. A former President of the Association of Black Sociologists, he was the Founding Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at UIC. The author of several research monographs and more than 50 journal articles and book chapters, he has written on such topics as social policy (e.g., social welfare and affirmative action), political sociology, labor force issues and policy, stratification and inequality, and the sociology of African Americans. He is author of Splitting the Middle: Political Alienation, Acquiescence, and Activism, editor of African Americans and the Public Agenda: The Paradoxes of Public Policy and co-editor of Empowerment in Chicago: Grassroots Participation in Economic Development and Poverty Alleviation. His latest book is Skin Deep: How Race and Complexion Matter in the "Color-Blind" Era. He has also received support for his research from the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and other agencies.