In one of the chapters we read from him last week, Huntington discusses this at length, but with data that are now nearly 20 years old. Here’s some more recent data, which show that the broad trend he describes is still the case. What do you make of this fact?
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2 replies on “American attitudes about affirmative action”
I found this article very interesting and helps you to under stand the issue of race in college admissions. The statistic that stuck out to me the most was, “white adults are particularly likely to hold this view: 78% say this, compared with 65% of Hispanics, 62% of blacks and 58% of Asians”. This statistic clearly illustrates the already known beliefs on affirmative action. Most whites do not want it because they know that this will mean less acceptances into top schools, now do to diversity requirements. As you look down the list you see that even those who benefit from affirmative action do not want race to be considered. I tend to agree with this view, that race should not be considered. If there was not a race box on applications nor a picture then it would solely be about who you are and what you have done with you life. If you deserve to go to a school it will show in grades and other parts of the application. Just because someone checks a race box should not mean that you are pushed up to the top of the pile.
These data certainly seem to give some backing to Huntington’s argument that the broad mass of American society is, even now, still in basic agreement with deeply traditional Anglo-Protestant individualism. Large majorities of all racial groups like the idea of admitting people to jobs and schools based on their individual skills w/o regard to their group identity.
An interesting question: how widely known do you think this fact is? That is, do you think media and educational institutions communicate this reality–that is, that most Americans don’t like group-based affirmative action–effectively to the public? Why or why not?