Against Equality of Opportunity

The book caused some controversy when the author was appointed as an adviser to then Labour Minister David Blunkett when it was revealed that the book argued that it was sometimes rational (in an economic sense) for white employers to discriminate against black applicants^[3][4]

This led to widespread calls for Cavanagh to be sacked, with questions tabled in Parliament, and the affair rumbled on for a few days. The Guardian's letters page carried a balance of letters for and against Cavanagh.^[5]

The book received positive reviews in the Times Educational Supplement^[6] The Spectator,^[2] and in academic journals including Ethics,^[7] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews,^[8] Theory and Research in Education^[9] and Contemporary Political Theory.^[10]

Other reviews were more mixed, including the London Review of Books,^[11] The Independent,^[1] Philosophical Books^[12] and Political Studies Review^[13] and Utilitas, the latter two arguing that the work does not adequately engage other scholarly literature relating to equality of opportunity by authors such as Joel Feinberg or George Sher.