This course argues that education affects the lives of everyone in U.S. society and that Michigan students can benefit from a close examination of how race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and class shape schooling in this culture. Discussions in this class are not always comfortable because the topics are difficult ones, but students routinely claim that taking this course has been a transformative experience. When we discuss today’s patterns of school funding, the effects of racism are immediately evident, and they take on historical context when we consider the gendered schooling of the Colonial Period, the denial of literacy to African Americans during the era of slavery, the powerful anti-Catholic sentiments that led to the creation of a system of Catholic education in the U.S., and the boarding schools which attempted to expunge the American Indian heritages of children. The historical context offers a somewhat distanced perspective on racism and ethnicity, along with gender, religion, and class. Accordingly, students sometimes take refuge in “that was then, this is now” with regard to issues of educational inequality. However, when the course turns to more contemporary issues such as theories of intelligence based on race or assumptions made about students of Arabic descent or the experiences of female students in math and science, it becomes more difficult to deny the ways that race or ethnicity or gender contribute to inequality in education. Comparisons extend across time as well as across populations. For example, learning about the recent increase in school-age immigrants and the experiences of English language learners gives students a point of comparison with the role schooling played in the lives of late 19^th-century immigrants. Similarly, considering the educational challenged faced by American Indians and Latinos in today’s schools provides a synchronous comparative experience. Overall, then, this course gives students multiple opportunities to consider the meaning of race and ethnicity, to explore the various forms of inequality engendered by intolerance, and to compare discrimination as it is enacted in response to many forms of difference.