I approach affirmative action as an academic rather than a partisan, so it is disappointing that Vijay Chokal-Ingam has chosen to engage in the topic, in a response to my Thursday post on the matter, by describing a very broad coalition of Asian American groups as “left-leaning” and nothing more.
In addition, I find the inclusion of his “true story” of masquerading as a black applicant to medical school an odd one, especially given that it appears to be a better example of the pitfalls of ignoring the scientific method rather than some smoking gun that affirmative action is discriminatory.
Indeed, as Chokal-Ingam points out, affirmative action is so controversial and so often misunderstood to the occasional benefit of both opponents and supporters, that survey-question phrasing is contentious and can dramatically affect results.
I should acknowledge that the field poll data by Karthick Ramakrishnan used in my column is biased – as all surveys are. In this case, the poll fails to account for the 40-plus percent of eligible Asian American voters who are not registered. The poll’s line of questioning, “Do you favor or oppose affirmative action programs designed to help blacks, women, and other minorities get better jobs and education?” however, is perhaps one of the least biased approaches to addressing the policy.
The criticisms leveled against the phrasing are that it conflates affirmative action practices in education and employment. But the policy was expressly established via executive actions during the 1960s to address the latter before schools used it for the former.
Omitting any definition of affirmative action in his poll by simply asking, “Do you support affirmative action?” or “Do you believe affirmative action should be abolished?” may appear to be less biased. Academic research drawing on the UCLA Cooperative Institutional Research Program freshman survey, which adopts the latter wording, suggests that Asian college students are either split even or mildly supportive of the policy.
Such phrasing, however, leaves it to the respondent to define what affirmative action exactly is. This allows powerful mythologies to shape respondent attitudes about a poorly understood policy, as UCLA education scholars Linda Sax and Marisol Arredondo noted. These misconceptions include the belief that affirmative action creates quotas – quotas were banned in 1978 – or that it makes race one of the principal criteria in admission. It does not.
Regardless of survey biases, most of the research and surveying on affirmative action attitudes is pursued with established methodologies, including the use of representative sample sizes. Chokal-Ingam’s sample size for his Almost-Black story, on the other hand, is one.
Political position notwithstanding, one thing about affirmative action is clear: Merely measuring what we think about it can be controversial.
Arthur, the problem is that “affirmative action” doesn’t have a generally agreed upon meaning. It is like asking people if they favor “family values” or “strong national defense” or something like that. A positive sounding phrase that encompasses a variety of possible things. To make a sensible issue poll, you need to define what you are asking about. Why not pick the thing that is most controversial, namely admissions decisions at colleges and graduate programs including race/ethnicity as one factor in determining admissions?
I bet you will find that no more than 25% of Asian-Americans will favor that (unless a few imagine incorrectly that they will themselves be beneficiaries of such practices–which is just the opposite of what is happening.)
This article provides a lot of data, and it seems to me to add up to a clear case that Asians (and to a smaller degree, Whites) are subject to large-scale discrimination in college and graduate school admissions.
Good luck keeping Asian-Americans on board for a policy that is so starkly against their own interests–and which clashes so strongly with normal conceptions of fairness and nondiscrimination.
There is nothing to stop universities from giving special consideration to people from low-income families, but that’s not what the race-obsessed universities want to do.
Oops, here is the link: http://priceonomics.com/post/48794283011/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-against-asians
“These misconceptions include the belief that affirmative action creates quotas – quotas were banned in 1978 – or that it makes race one of the principal criteria in admission. It does not.”
Then what exactly does affirmative action do?