Firedoglake's Book Salon hosted an online conversation earlier this week with Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, a co-author of the RSF book Documenting Desegregation. Using data that analyzes over 5 million private sector workplaces between 1966 and 2005, the volume shows the American private-sector workplace remains highly segregated. The Firedoglake forum compiled some of the book's main findings:

• The legal changes prohibiting employment discrimination have certainly had an impact, with the biggest declines in racial segregation coming in the sixties before enforcement of the new civil rights laws but during the period of maximum political struggle and corporate uncertainty over what equal opportunity would mean;
• Black women, far from benefiting from their “two-fer” status, have benefited less than black men and white women from more integrated workforces;
• As firms hire a lower proportion of white men, white men’s access to the best jobs, such as higher level managerial positions, increases;
• The pace of racial desegregation has slowed considerably with lesser enforcement after 1980, and since 1990, considerable resegregation has occurred, particularly in high-wage industries, with a third of all industries showing greater resegregation between white men and black men during the 2001-2005 period.

The forum included questions from readers on affirmative action, access to education, and the influence of social movements on desegregation trends. Read more here.