Race-based Affirmative Action Research Articles

Diversity, Race as Proxy, and Religion as Proxy

This article makes two observations about the intellectual diversity rationale for race-based affirmative action: (1) Race as Proxy: The rational uses race as proxy for people's attitudes, something that equal protection jurisprudence generally condemns. It's hard to see how this use of race as proxy is different from other, impermissible uses. (2) Religion as Proxy: The intellectual diversity arguments in favor of race-conscious decisions would also apply to religion-conscious decisions, especially given the lack of devoutly religious perspectives in many academic environments. If we believe that the end of intellectual diversity doesn't justify the means of religious discrimination, this suggests the same may be true for race.

Applied demography, affirmative action and rapidly evolving case law: A comment on Siegel and Morrison

The papers preceding this comment are excellent articles by noted demographers working at the intersection of public policy and demography. Morrison's article describes a method for determining whether a court ordered desegregation program of magnet schools succeeded in attracting students from suburban areas outside of the district or merely drew students from other schools within the district. Siegel's article discusses the need for statistical guidelines for the evaluation of the geographic compactness of redistricting plans. Both articles stem from litigation in which the authors were serving as expert witnesses and both relate to the current national debate over federally enforced affirmative action programs. As the national debate on affirmative action has intensified, an increasingly conservative Supreme Court has sought ways to curb or eliminate such programs. During its 1994-1995 term the Court issued three rulings in this area each decided by the same 5 to 4 split (Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas in the majority and Blackmun, Ginsburg, Souter and Stephens in the minority). The first of these rulings Adarand Constructors Inc. v. Pena held that race-based affirmative action programs involving minority set asides must be narrowly tailored to further compelling governmental interests. Interestingly, this requirement for the application of a strict scrutiny standard for racially-based preferences was not applied to gender-based affirmative action programs. The other two cases, Missouri v. Jenkins and Miller v. Johnson are directly connected to the two articles being discussed. Each is basically saying that affirmative action programs that are racially or ethnically-based are only constitutional if, under the standard of strict scrutiny, they can be shown to serve a compelling state interest. Demographers serving as expert witnesses must choose between two alternative roles. The first is an advocacy role described by Smith (1993) as, 'professionally competent demographic analysis that will help advance the client's interests'. Smith described the other role as that of educator in which the expert behaves as an impartial observer whose conclusions may or may not be helpful to the client. These articles showcase the involvement of two prominent demographers in high profile cases of national importance.1 They also illustrate these two approaches to serving as an expert witness, with Morrison appearing to be more of an advocate and Siegel more of an educator.

The Short History of Race-Based Affirmative Action at Rice University

The Short History of Race-Based Affirmative Action at Rice University

Understanding resistance to sex and race-based affirmative action: A review of research findings

The public discussion of affirmative action appears to be complicated by disagreements regarding definitions and by the lack of a theoretical framework from which to begin to understand this complex public policy. The present review attempts to synthesize the available research into a model from which resistance to affirmative action can be understood. Within the model, resistance to affirmative action policies is viewed as influenced by two main categories of factors—the evaluator's perspective and the context in which the policy is embedded. Based on these categories, specific hypotheses are constructed regarding resistance. In addition, recommendations for enhancing acceptance of affirmative action are made based on the model and previous research.

Race and Sex Differences in Reactions to a Simulated Selection Decision Involving Race-Based Affirmative Action

Affirmative action policies lead to social psychological costs for the intended beneficiaries in the form of negative reactions and reduced perceptions of competence. However, most of the research has involved affi rmative action based on sex rather than race and has compared males to females rather than Blacks to Whites. Two hundred and thirty-five (235) college students completed a scenario study involving reactions to having received afellowship position based on affirmative action. The independent variables included race (Black White), sex (male, female), type of affirmative action (soft, hard), and qualifications (less or equally qualified). Data were collected on evaluations of negative affect, fairness, and competence. The results indicated that although sex-based affirmative action may result in certain social psychological costsforfemales, the same effect may not occur as afunction of race, for Blacks compared to Whites. Even in those situations where affirmative action did affect reactions of participants, competence information served as a moderator As a result, it would be premature to accept uncritically the presumption that results for affirmative action based on gender generalize to race.