The book served as assigned reading for faculty and staff over the summer of 2014. The book offers carefully researched evidence of the crippling effects and first hand accounts of stereotype threat, a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves at risk of confirming negative stereotypes about their, social group.

Aside from an in person summarization of the book, Mr. Steele shared deeper insights and comments on the subtle differences between prejudice and the more internalized stereotype threat. He showed a historic video clip from the documentary "A Class Divided" the famous "brown eyes, blue eyes" experiment of racial (eye)-based prejudice done in the 60's in an Iowa classroom. After screening a clip, Mr. Steele confessed that while the film serves as a petri dish example of stereotype threat; it would be a highly inappropriate exercise in the classroom today. In addition, Mr. Steele shared detailed, authoritative analysis from his years of research and experience. Several faculty and staff members took the opportunity to stay with Mr. Steele long after the talk for more Q&A in order to discuss approaches for counteracting the stereotype threat in Dalton's classrooms.