Supreme Court Rulings and Changes in White Americans' Affirmative Action Attitudes and Norm Perceptions

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Abstract

Landmark Supreme Court rulings provide members of the public opportunities to engage with major social issues, reassess their own attitudes, and adjust their norm perceptions -- the perception of what attitudes and behaviors are typical or desirable in society. In this study, we use a quasi-experimental interrupted time series design to examine the effects of the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina rulings that effectively banned race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Across four waves of data collection between May and August of 2023, we surveyed an original online panel of White participants (balanced between Democrats and Republicans) on their attitudes and norm perceptions toward affirmative action, the role of race, racism and diversity in society more broadly, folk beliefs about the college admissions process, and perceptions of the Court itself. To distinguish between direct and indirect effects of the Ruling, we also collected subjective observations of subsequent media coverage and local discourse. We find that after the ruling compared to before, respondents perceived Americans as less supportive of affirmative action, more racially resentful, and weaker in the belief that racism is an important problem today. Subjective accounts of the public’s reaction to the ruling moderated the effect of the ruling on norm perceptions, such that the more positive the media and close others appeared to be about the ruling, the greater the negative effect on perceptions of American support for affirmative action. However, personal attitudes become more politically polarized, such that Republicans became slightly less supportive of affirmative action after the ruling and Democrats became slightly more supportive. The pattern of change in norm perceptions compared to attitudes create the possibility for asymmetric pluralistic ignorance with downstream consequences.

Authors

• Janet Xu, Stanford University

• Chelsey Clark, Princeton University

• Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Princeton University