ANN ARBOR—The dean of the Wayne State University Law School says he will offer a new paradigm on affirmative action as he presents the fourth annual University of Michigan Nancy Cantor Distinguished Lecture at 10 a.m. April 12 in Rackham Auditorium.

Frank H. Wu says affirmative action often is discussed as a black-and-white issue, and one that is a means to an end, but” no one says it’s an end in and of itself.”

“What I would argue is that we need to talk about what affirmative action is intended to address,” Wu said of the premise he will explore in his talk,” Toward a Diverse Democracy: Affirmative Action and Higher Education.” The lecture is free and open to the public.

“What sort of society do we want to have, what do we want our institutions to look like, who do we want to belong there, and then how do we get there, are some of the questions we need to answer,” Wu said.

“That dialogue should begin with race,” said Wu, author of the book” Yellow–Race in American Beyond Black and White,” in which he argues that race is not predominantly an issue between whites and African Americans, but is one involving the growing U.S. population of Asian Americans and Latinos, as well as other groups.

“If we want to talk seriously about race, we should have an accurate picture of the world,” he said.” If we are to understand these issues as a society, it requires that every member of society is recognized as a stakeholder.”

In” Yellow,” Wu uses stories from his life growing up as an Asian American in nearby Canton, and then attending The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Michigan, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts and a J.D., respectively.

In what reviewers have called a candid illumination of the issues that often go unspoken in the mainstream discussions of race, Wu’s book and other writings address subtle forms of bigotry that he says nearly are as toxic as more overt expressions, in which there are clear victims and villains.

“I don