Stephan Thernstrom (November 5, 1934 – January 23, 2025) was an American academic and historian who was the Winthrop Research Professor of History Emeritus at Harvard University.
[1] He and his wife Abigail Thernstrom were prominent opponents of affirmative action in education and according to the New York Times, they "lead the conservative charge against racial preference in America.
"[3] Thernstrom has served as an expert witness for the defense in more than two dozen federal cases involving claims of racial discrimination in schools.
He co-authored with his wife Abigail Thernstrom No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning, named by both the Los Angeles Times and the American School Board Journal as one of the best books of 2003 and the winner of the 2007 Fordham Prize for Distinguished Scholarship.
[4] According to the New York Times, "The couple are much in demand on the conservative talk-show circuit, where they forcefully argue that racial preferences are wrong, divisive and, as a tool to help minorities, overrated.