This article examines the complicity of academic paradigms and public policies with racist discourses and racial discrimination in the United States. From the most overt racial segregation policies and biological racist discourses to the most recent and covert forms of ‘color-blind racism’, the article discusses the shifting forms of racial discrimination and academic paradigms in the US. The first part discusses mainstream academic schools of thought relating to race and ethnicity in the US. The second part provides a brief history of public policies related to race. Given the myth of the US as a land of equal opportunities for migrants from all over the world, race and ethnic based paradigms are frequently conflated with migration theories. Both are examined in the article.