Prejudice and Jury Selection

Abstract

A survey of the literature indicates, generally, that racial prejudice has been diminishing in the United States during the last twenty or thirty years. Thus, while stereotypes of the 1930s and 1940s supported white superiority (Sheatsley, 1966), by the 1950s and 1960s the white population verbalized more positive attitudes toward blacks (Schlenker, 1976: 319, 326; Meer and Freedman, 1966: 11-19). The civil rights movement of the 1960s may have ameliorated racial prejudice in several areas. For example, a survey of 15 cities showed that white acceptance of open housing increased from 53% in 1964 to 65% in 1968 to 67% in 1970 (Campbell, 1971: 133). By the 1970s at least some segments of the white population attributed few, if any, negative traits to minorities (Maykovich, 1971: 377; Burdsal, 1975: 255-259)-. Despite this generally more tolerant attitude toward minorities, there is still a great deal of variation in the white population's racial predispositions, and many white individuals