Affirmative Action for the Future

1. Current Racial and Sexual Discrimination

1 Current Racial and Sexual Discrimination Surveys in the United States today show that white Americans overwhelmingly publicly ascribe to principles of racial equality and integration .1 At the same time, 80 percent of whites recently surveyed deny that racial discrimination against people of color is a significant problem.2 In another survey, 70 percent of whites believe that blacks are treated equally in their communities. In this survey, 80 percent of whites also thought that underrepresented groups, such as blacks and Latinos, receive equal, if not preferred, treatment in education.3 Another recent survey found that 68 percent of whites think that blacks have the same or more opportunities than whites to be “really successful and wealthy.”4 According to this survey, a majority of whites think that educationally the average black American is just as well off as, or better off than, the average white American; 47 percent think that blacks and whites enjoy the same standard of living. Still another survey found that most Americans believe that “reverse discrimination” is the predominant type of discrimination in the United States.5 Current Racial and Sexual Discrimination 7 Surprisingly, however, similar views were expressed in a poll taken in 1962, two years before the Civil Rights Act overcame a historic eightythree -day filibuster in the Senate and made its way through the U.S. Congress. In that poll, more than nine in ten whites said that whites and blacks had just as good a chance for a quality education.6 They said so even though at that time, despite two Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decisions, de jure segregation still held sway throughout most of the South. In the 1963–64 school year in the eleven states of the former Confederacy , only 1.17 percent of black students were attending schools with white students.7 Nevertheless, many today would hold that the view shared by a large majority of white Americans in 1962 was at the time fundamentally mistaken and grounded in underlying racial prejudice. But what about the views of the greater majority of white Americans today, as reflected in the surveys I have just cited? Might not they also be mistaken for somewhat similar reasons? Consider the following data: in the United States today almost half of all black children live in poverty. Black unemployment is twice that of white, and the median net worth of white families is ten times that of black families. The infant mortality rate in many black communities is twice that of whites. Blacks are twice as likely as whites to be robbed, seven times more likely to be murdered or to die of tuberculosis. A male living in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City is less likely to reach age sixty- five than a resident of Bangladesh. According to a United Nations study, white Americans, when considered as a separate nation, rank first in the world in well-being (a measure that combines life expectancy, educational achievements, and income). African Americans rank twenty-seventh, and Hispanic Americans even lower at thirty-second.8 Yet these particular disparities between blacks and whites could be just the result of past discrimination. They do not necessarily provide evidence of current ongoing racial discrimination, although they do undercut the view that blacks and whites enjoy the same standard of living. Consider then the following data: • According to a recent study of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, the loan rejection rate for blacks in the highest income bracket is identical to the rejection rate of whites in the lowest income bracket. In another study, minority 8 Affirmative Action for the Future applicants are 50 percent more likely to be denied a loan than white applicants of equivalent economic status.9 • According to a study done at the University of Colorado at Boulder, blacks seeking business loans were two to three times more likely to be rejected than whites, and blacks were twelve times more likely to be rejected than whites at the highest levels of assets and collateral.10 • In a study by the Urban Institute equally qualified, identically dressed, white and African American applicants for jobs were used to test for bias in the job market for newspaper-advertised positions. White and African Americans were matched identically for age, work experience, speech patterns, personal characteristics, and physical build. The study found repeated discrimination against African American...