About
The opinion dropped. As we expected, conservative Justices invoked the claim that race-conscious policies stigmatize and mismatch their beneficiaries. Both claims have attracted sustained critique. But they still enjoy traction in the popular press and shape our national affirmative action conversations. In this episode of #RaceClass, we explore the racialized presumptions that anchor both claims.
Consider the following. White men are routinely admitted to Harvard and other elite schools with lower mean test scores than their Asian American counterparts. Per stigma theory, all white men on campus should face a presumption of intellectual inferiority. Per the "mismatch" hypothesis, all those white men with lower scores would better off at "less competitive" schools. It’s hard to imagine anyone buying that. So why do parallel claims about stigma and mismatch, when directed at affirmative action and Black students, appear intuitive and obvious to so many?
#RaceClass Reqs: Mismatched or Counted Out (Hawkins), Empirical Scholars Brief (Thaxton et al.); Cracking the Egg (Onwuachi-Willig et al.)
Consider the following. White men are routinely admitted to Harvard and other elite schools with lower mean test scores than their Asian American counterparts. Per stigma theory, all white men on campus should face a presumption of intellectual inferiority. Per the "mismatch" hypothesis, all those white men with lower scores would better off at "less competitive" schools. It’s hard to imagine anyone buying that. So why do parallel claims about stigma and mismatch, when directed at affirmative action and Black students, appear intuitive and obvious to so many?
#RaceClass Reqs: Mismatched or Counted Out (Hawkins), Empirical Scholars Brief (Thaxton et al.); Cracking the Egg (Onwuachi-Willig et al.)