Racial Differences in College Students’ Assessments of Campus Race Relations

Guided by the principles of critical race theory, we sought to understand how race and racism help explain differences in White and Black students’ assessments of race relations on a predominantly White college campus. The authors employed data from a campuswide survey conducted in Spring 2013 at the University of Alabama; the sample numbered 3,219 students. For Blacks and Whites, a strong relationship was observed between perception of campus race relations and a measure of symbolic racism, such that higher symbolic racism scores predicted a more positive perception of race relations.