From Remedial Justice to Diversity: Pillars of Support for Affirmative Action

• In Event: Poster Session: Race, Ethnicity, and Politics

Abstract

The future of affirmative action in education is uncertain, with recent controversies over the New York City specialized school system and the lawsuit against Harvard by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA). While a federal judge ruled in favor of Harvard, SFFA has vowed to take the case to the Supreme Court. What is notable about recent events is that anti-affirmative action efforts have positioned Asian Americans as the group that is harmed by the policy, raising questions about race and meritocracy and where racial/ethnic cleavages fall in society.

This issue has garnered lots of debate in the media, but there is much we do not know about attitudes towards affirmative action, particularly by Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Previous literature has sought to understand opposition to affirmative action, but less attention has been paid to why people support the policy. Understanding support for affirmative action is crucial because affirmative action was designed to address past and current discrimination, but has since moved away from this original purpose of remedial justice and is now largely justified by needs for “diversity.” This study seeks to connect the policy’s historical development to individual attitudes, asking: how do narratives of remedial justice and diversity as the basis for affirmative action resonate with various racial and ethnic groups? How do people think about which groups constitute “diversity” and deserve remedial justice? By using a unique experimental design, this work seeks to shed light on how people allocate importance to race, as well as processes of racialization and socialization into the racial order.

Author

• Sonya Chen, Princeton University