Native Toledoan, Kenneth Spruce is preparing to release his third book Allan Bakke, Affirmative Action, the University of Cincinnati and The Spruce Report in 2025. His goal in writing this book is to educate younger generations about the history of equality in America while encouraging them to continue the fight.
Spruce is also an activist, educator and entrepreneur. He has been a manager in the City of Toledo Department of Economic and Community Development, an associate professor of political science at the University System of Georgia and a Baptist deacon. Currently Spruce is the president and CEO of a publishing company which assists new and seasoned writers with financial resources, writing support and literary consultation.
Affirmative action in 2024
In his newest book, Spruce references his past work concerning affirmative action policy, “The Spruce Report”, which he co-authored in 1978. Affirmative action is a set of policies, promulgated by the government, to benefit marginalized communities and to combat discrimination in employment and education.
In 2023 the US Supreme Court reversed the law which underpinned affirmative action efforts, which effectively stopped colleges and universities from making admission decisions based on race. Spruce’s hope in writing his latest book is to draw attention to the importance of affirmative action in higher education, specifically the University of Cincinnati.
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“The whole purpose of the book is to educate young people about the history of how we got where we are today, and to alert them,” Spruce said. “You guys need to get up and start fighting, because that’s how we got what we have – by fighting.”
A call to action
Spruce views this book as a call to action for younger generations to fight to keep affirmative action relevant in public and private universities, while ensuring that future generations have the opportunities fought for by older generations.
Spruce has been working on the book for seven and a half years and the size of the project has expanded since he began writing. He began with the work that he had done with Anthony Adams in 1978 when they were students at the University of Cincinnati in 1978. During the writing, he realized that he could reach a larger audience if he expanded the issues he discussed in the book. “My professors taught me very well that if you have an issue and you make it expansive, you’re gonna have a much larger audience,” Spruce explains. That realization adjusted the focus from the University of Cincinnati in 1978 to the entire country and all 400 years of its history. Spruce uses the history of the University of Cincinnati as a case study for the history of discrimination in the U.S.
With 30 interviews completed for the book, Spruce hopes to include a few more before the book is published. He recently released a small excerpt from the book to a few of his supporters so they are able to see the progress that he has made. Spruce plans to self-publish the book by 2025 and is looking for donations through the GoFundMe page to help defray those costs.
For more information visit linkedin.com/in/professor-spruce/.
