367)
According to Sander, none of these questions have been asked effectively and therefore we as a nation continue to believe that affirmative action is a necessary social development for the creation of a more representative society, where disenfranchisement must be answered by active plans, policies and laws.
Few of us would enthusiastically support preferential admission policies if we did not believe they played a powerful, irreplaceable role in giving nonwhites in America access to higher education, entree to the national elite, and a chance of correcting historic underrepresentations in the leading professions. (Sander, 2004, p. 367)
Sander then goes on, surprisingly to develop the fact that racial preference, at least in elite law school statistical analysis has not been an effective tool in the development of a more representative and diverse population among lawyers and in fact he contends that if it were abolished minority races might actually fare better.
When one takes into account the corrosive effects of racial preferences on the chances of all black law students to graduate and pass the bar, these preferences...tend, system-wide, to shrink rather than expand the total number of new black lawyers each year. If all preferences were abolished, the data in Part VIII suggests that the number of black attorneys emerging from the class of 2004 would be 7% larger than it is. The number of black attorneys passing the bar on their first attempt would be 20% larger. even if the attrition effects of the current system were much smaller than I have estimated, we would still be producing approximately the same number -- and much better trained -- black attorneys under a race-blind system. (Sander, 2004, p. 367)
Sander's work is an exhaustive research article detailing year of admissions and Barr exam statistics, and leaves the readers feeling as if there are significant negative effects with regard to the ramifications of AA in institutions, but especially in institutions where the bar is set very high, such as is the necessary case in law education.
The final research article to be reviewed and critiqued here is one developed in response to previous research which indicated that people are resistant to AA policies, and therefore they are logically resentful when they are applied.
Several explanations have been offered to account for this resistance. Some of the explanations focus on characteristics of the target of affirmative action (e.g., the applicant is underqualified), or on the characteristics of the affirmative action policy (e.g., the policy is not procedurally just), while others focus on the relationship between the perceiver and the target (e.g., whether the applicant is a member of the same sex or racial group). The main conclusion offered by this work is that resistance to affirmative action is based on evaluations of the fairness of the affirmative action policy. What is unclear is whether the impact of the perceived fairness of the policy moderates the effect of the applicant, policy, or type of group membership on subsequent evaluations...criteria used for judgments of fairness are highly dependent on the social context. Judgments of policy fairness are likely to be contextualized by such factors as the type of selection policy, the qualifications of the applicant, or group membership of the perceiver. Thus, we suggest that characteristics of the target, the policy, or the group interact with the perceived fairness of the affirmative action policy to determine evaluations of an affirmative action applicant. (Dietz-Uhler & Murrell, 1998, p. 933)
The findings of the work indicate that the most tewlling features of individual perception of fairness of the model of AA are demographic, i.e. do the individuals belong to a group that could be furthered by AA or one that might be perceived as being slighted by it. This in and of itself gives credence tot the idea that AA could have some negative effects on race relations in the education or business setting.
Research Question
Is affirmative action policy implementation destructive to race relations in higher education and/or business?
Hypothesis
The application or perceived application of Affirmative action policies are destructive to race relations in education and the work place, and much more so given the majority status of the individual in the organization. Transparency in application of AA would improve race relations only when applicants given preferential admissions or offered employment are shown to be just as qualified or more qualified than other applicants seeking the same position.
Sample
Two business organizations will be asked to participate in a research study looking at race relations and affirmative action...
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