Black Support for Affirmative Action Programs

Abstract

DESPITE THE CONTROVERSY generated by affirmative action programs over the past decade, there is a paucity of literature on public opinion about such programs.' Even the few articles concerning attitudes about affirmative action programs contain only marginal references to attitudes of blacks and the article by Lipset and Schneider2 is exceptional because it actually contains empirical data from a black sample. This lack of data on the black perspective is not unusual.3 The surveys done by the Louis Harris polling organization in the 1960s were the first national samples of blacks.4 The Harris organization has continued periodic surveys of attitudes of black people about current events, however, and in 1978 again conducted a national survey of attitudes of blacks and whites about racial issues.5 A substantial number of the questions were about affirmative action programs, and this body of data allows us to examine attitudes of blacks about the topic at the height of publicity surrounding affirmative action programs and the Bakke test case of affirmative action. Three important questions arise with regard to attitudes of blacks about affirmative action programs which this paper attempts to answer. The first is a simple question: how much support is there in the black community for affirmative action programs? A second question is: which groups in the black community are the strongest supporters of affirmative action programs? Traditionally the black middle class has been at the forefront of civil rights activities and efforts to improve the status of blacks in American society.6 This may suggest to some that selfinterest is operating, that those blacks who stand to gain the most are the most active.