Whites’ Opposition to Affirmative Action:

Rejection of Group-based Preferences as well as Rejection of Blacks

Thomas C. Wilson, Florida Atlantic University

Abstract
This study addresses whether whites’ rejection of affirmative action reflects an opposition
to group-based preferences per se, independent of their attitudes toward blacks. Analysis
of 1996 General Social Survey data shows that whites’ attitude toward preferential hiring
and promotion of blacks is predicted by their attitude toward preferential hiring and
promotion of women. This finding remains unchanged when controlling for racial and
other attitudes, and it holds regardless of gender. The conclusion is that whites’ rejection of
racial preferences reflects both rejection of blacks and rejection of group-based preferences
in general, regardless of the target group.

Introduction
White Americans generally oppose preferential treatment for African Americans
in the areas of education and employment (Krysan 2000). As an attitude object,
racial preference programs reflect an amalgam of two objects: the black target
group and the preference policy itself, independent of its intended beneficiary’s
identity (Krysan 2000). Past research shows that whites’ rejection of race-based
preferences reflects their rejection of blacks. In this study I focus on whether
opposition to race-based preferences in hiring and promotion is also based
on whites’ rejection of group-based preferences per se, that is, in general,
independent of their attitudes toward blacks.

Explaining Whites’ Policy Views

Research clearly shows that whites’ opposition to race-based preferences is
motivated by “new, but not old-fashioned” racism. It has little to do with traditional
prejudice expressed by stereotyping, the assumption of biological inferiority, and
by supporting segregation and discrimination (McConahay 1982, Sears 1988,
Schuman et al. 1997, Sears et al. 2000). On the other hand it has been linked
to various formulations of what is considered a new form of racism. The first,
best developed and most thoroughly tested of these is “symbolic racism,” by
which is meant a blend of anti-black affect and the kind of traditional American
moral values embodied in the Protestant ethic (Kinder and Sears 1981). Symbolic
racism is expressed by the belief that “racial discrimination is largely a thing of
the past, that blacks should just work harder to overcome their disadvantages,
and that blacks are making excessive demands for special treatment and get
too much attention from elites, so their gains are often undeserved.” (Sears
et al. 1997; Sears, Henry and Kosterman 2000). Other similar formulations are
termed “modern racism,” (McConahay 1986), “racial resentment,” (Kinder and
Sanders 1996), “subtle prejudice,” (Pettigrew and Meertens 1995) and “laissez-

Direct correspondence to Thomas C. Wilson, Department of Sociology, Florida Atlantic

University, Boca Raton, FL. E-mail: Wilson@fau.edu.
© The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, Volume 85, Number 1, September 2006
112 • Social Forces Volume 85, Number 1 • September 2006

faire racism,” (Bobo, Kluegel and Smith 1997), all of which are theoretically
distinguishable from but operationally similar to symbolic racism (Sears et al.
2000, Kinder and Mendelberg 2000, Schuman 2000, Krysan 2000).
New racism has been found to predict whites’ racial policy views, including
rejection of race-based preferences ( Kinder and Sears 1981; Sears and Kinder
1971; Kinder and Sanders 1996; Sears, Henry and Kosterman 2000; Kluegel and
Bobo 2001). Studies have also found that whites’ views are predicted by attitudes
and values containing no manifest racial content and which, on their face, are
seemingly racially neutral and, if anything, more reflective of rejection of group-
based preferences in general than rejection of blacks in particular. Such attitudes
include political ideology, attitudes toward the role of government, individualism,
egalitarianism, stratification ideologies and justice concerns (Kinder and Sears
1981; Kluegel and Smith 1983; Sears et al. 1997; Sears, Sidanius and Bobo 2000;
Kinder and Mendelberg, 2000; Sears, Henry and Kosterman 2000; Federico and
Sidanius 2002a, 2002b; Krysan 2000). However, these attitudes’ race-neutrality
has not been conclusively documented and, in fact, certain of them have been
found to be correlated to whites’ rejection of blacks (Bobocel et al. 1998; Federico
and Sidanius 2002a, 2002b ). Further, even if these attitudes are racially neutral,
rejection of policy and not target group can only be inferred from the empirical
link between them and racial policy views. To my knowledge no empirical study
has tested this inference.
Prior research shows that whites’ rejection of race-based preferences is to
some extent reflective of their rejection of blacks as expressed by indicators
of new racism, and to some extent reflective of seemingly race-neutral values
suggesting rejection of group-based preferences in general. In the following
study I more directly test the role of general rejection of preferences, doing
so by focusing on the relationship between whites’ opposition to race-based
preferences and their views on an apparently race-neutral but otherwise identical
policy providing gender-based preferences.

A Study of Race- and Gender-Based Preferences

Data are taken from the 1996 General Social Survey (Davis and Smith 2003), which
is the only GSS data set containing variables that tap attitudes toward preferential
hiring and promotion of blacks and women. Their frequency distributions
are presented in Table 1.1 Whites’ rejection of race-based preferences is
overwhelming, with 92.3 percent of men and 87.3 percent of women opposed or
strongly opposed. Rejection of gender-based preferences is nearly as great, with
82.7 percent of men and 78.2 percent of women opposed or strongly opposed.
In what follows, I assume that whites’ rejection of race-based preferences is
based on rejection of group-based preferences, which are generally independent
of the target group to the extent that the following conditions are met. First,
the two policy views in Table 1 are directly related. Second, the relationship is
replicated when controlling for attitudes toward blacks and women and toward
other racial- and gender-policy views not involving preferences. The rationale
here is that one’s view on a preference policy can reflect both evaluations of the
policy and the target group (Krysan 2000). So, a correlation between views on
 Whites’ Opposition to Affirmative Action • 113

Table 1: Whites’ Opposition to Preferential Hiring and Promotion of Blacks and of Women,
by Gender

Men (N = 325) Women (N = 409)

Preferences* for Blacks Women Blacks Women
Percentages:
1. strongly support 4.9 8.9 5.1 13.9

2. support 2.8 8.3 7.6 7.8

3. oppose 23.7 25.2 26.4 28.1

4. strongly oppose 68.6 57.5 60.9 50.1

*Some people say that because of past discrimination, (blacks/ women) should be given prefer-
ence in hiring and promotion. Others say that such preference in hiring and promotion of
(blacks/ women) is wrong because it discriminates against (whites/ men). What do you think?
Are you for or against preferential hiring and promotion of (blacks/ women)?

race and gender policies may merely reflect respondents’ tendency to evaluate
blacks and women similarly. With attitudes toward blacks and women controlled,
any residual correlation between race- and gender-policy views indicates that
respondents evaluate policies similarly, independent of target group. Further, if
the correlation is maintained when also controlling for views on similar policies
not entailing preferences, the implication is that respondents evaluated the race-
and gender-based preference policies similarly based on their general attitude
toward preferences per se. A third condition is that the relationship is replicated
both among white men and white women. The rationale here is that white men’s
tendency to evaluate these preference policies similarly may be based on self-
interest leading them to oppose any policy offering no benefit to themselves.
However, the same tendency among white women is interpretable as based on
their general views on preferences, regardless not only of target group, but also
regardless of whether they themselves benefit.
My statistical method is OLS regression of race-preference views on gender-
preference views, and control variables. Controls tapping attitudes toward
blacks include two indicators of old-fashioned, racism: the attribution of blacks’
socioeconomic condition to their lesser ability to learn and reluctance to vote
for a black presidential candidate. Also included are five indicators of symbolic
racism, perhaps the most prominent formulation of new racism. Available
symbolic racism indicators correspond to two of four dimensions of the concept
identified by Henry and Sears (2002): work ethic and responsibility, and continued
discrimination. The indicators are the views that blacks lack motivation, that they
should do “without any special favors, that current discrimination is minimal,
that blacks have adequate educational opportunity, and that conditions for blacks
have recently improved.”2
Six controls tap attitudes toward women: the views that women should take
care of their homes first, that wives shouldn’t work outside the home, that women
are unsuited emotionally for politics, that a husband’s career is more important
114 • Social Forces Volume 85, Number 1 • September 2006

than a wife’s career, that it is better if the man is the achiever outside the home,
and reluctance to vote for a women presidential candidate. Two controls tap
views on policies not involving preferences. The first asks whether the country
is spending too much to improve the condition of blacks, and the second taps
views on “special efforts” to hire and promote women. I will also control for
several demographic variables: age, education in years, household income (a 21-
point ordinal scale), and region coded for Southern residence.3

Findings
Findings for white men appear in the left-most columns of table 2. Bivariate
correlations between rejection of race preferences and the independent variables
show a very strong tendency for those opposing gender preferences to also
oppose race preferences ( r = .63). Racial attitudes associated with old-fashioned
racism are unrelated to views on racial preferences but all new racism indicators
are directly related to opposing racial preferences. Attitudes toward women
are consistently unrelated to race-preference views. Those who oppose other
policies favoring blacks and women but not involving preferences tend also to
oppose race preferences.
The regression analysis shows for white men that even when attitudes
toward blacks, women and policies not involving preferences are controlled,
gender-preference views remain a robust predictor of views on race-based
preferences and, indeed, its strength is only marginally reduced compared to
that at the zero-order level ( beta = .54 v r = .63). As I noted above, this residual
relationship between views on gender- and race-preferences strongly suggests
that respondents tend to evaluate group-preference policies similarly, regardless
of the identity of the groups targeted by the policies, and that their evaluations
reflect their general attitude toward group-base preferences per se.
There is an alternative interpretation: race- and gender-preference views may
be related among white males not because both policies entail group-based
preferences, but because they entail group-based preferences that do not benefit
white men. That is, white men’s rejection of both policies may be based on their
own self-interests. If so, I would expect a much weaker relationship between
white women’s gender- and race-preference views compared to those just
discussed for white men. This explanation is tested in the right-most columns
of Table 2.
Results for white women are for the most part quite similar to those for white
men. There is a strong tendency for those opposing gender preferences to also
oppose racial preferences (r = .47). Racial attitudes associated with new but not
old- fashioned racism are related to opposing racial preferences, as are attitudes
toward non-preference racial and gender policies. None of the gender attitudes
is related to racial-preference views.
The regression shows that, controlling for racial and gender attitudes along
with other policy attitudes, gender-preference views remains a robust predictor
of opposition to race-based preferences, with the magnitude of its effect reduced
only slightly compared to the bivariate level (beta =.35 vs. r = .47).
 Whites’ Opposition to Affirmative Action • 115

Table 2: Determinants of Opposition to Race-based Preferences in Hiring and Promotion

White Men White Women
r beta1 r beta1
Opposes Preferential Hiring of Women .63* .54* .47* .35*
Old-fashioned Racism:
Blacks less able to learn .08 .09* -.01 .02
Wouldn’t vote for black candidate .05 .08 .02 -.02
New Racism:
No current discrimination .31* .02 .30* .10*
Blacks lack motivation .13* -.03 .18* .06
Blacks have educational opportunity .20* .02 .21* .03
Conditions for blacks have improved .20* .07 .11* -.00
No special favors for blacks .41* .21* .41* .29*
Gender Attitudes:
Women care for home, not country .03 -.01 -.04 -.04
Women not suited for politics .05 .02 -.04 -.07
Women shouldn’t work -.02 .00 .03 .02
Men work, Women tend home .06 -.03 .08 -.06
Wouldn’t vote for woman candidate .08 -.02 .02 .01
Women help husband first .07 .05 .09 .08
Too much spending on assistance to blacks .31* .08 .22* -.03
Opposes special efforts to hire women .35* .04 .28* .10*
2
R .497 .356
1
Net also controls for respondent’s education, household income, age and residence in the
southern states.
*p < .05

In all, findings are similar regardless of gender and show two things: (1)
opposition to race-based preferences is predicted by rejection of gender-based
preferences; (2) the strength of the prediction is little attenuated with attitudes
toward blacks, women and other policies controlled. The only notable difference
in findings by gender is that the relationship between views on gender- and race-
preferences is clearly stronger for men (beta = .54 vs. beta = .36).4 A potential
explanation for this was mentioned earlier: for white men, views on gender- and
race-preferences may be correlated not only because both policies involve group-
based preferences but also because both policies offer benefits to others (women
and blacks), but not to white men. For white women, who stand to benefit from
gender preferences, views on gender- and race-preferences can be correlated
only because both policies involve group-based preferences (that is, after controls
for the other attitudes included in the regression). If this is so, then findings for
women are a better indicator of the extent to which rejection of race-preferences
116 • Social Forces Volume 85, Number 1 • September 2006

are based on rejection of group-based preferences generally, independent not

only of the other attitudes included in the analysis, but independent also of self-
interest or group-interest.

Discussion
In a recent literature review Krysan (2000:142) observed that “The debate about
the meaning of racial policy attitudes comes down to assertions about which
of a number of attitudinal variables is responsible for generating support or
opposition.” To date, research on views toward racial preferences has shown
that opposition among whites is consistently and robustly generated by racial
attitudes indicating whites’ rejection of blacks. Results have shown that it is also
generated by attitudes and values that are arguably race-neutral, and from which
opposition to group-based preferences in general and regardless of target group
might reasonably be inferred.
The approach taken in this study has been to focus on the statistical relationship
between whites’ views on race-based preferences in employment and promotion
and their views on similar gender-based preferences. The rationale has been
that to the extent to which this relationship is observed among white men and
women alike, even when controlling for racial and gender attitudes, and other
racial and gender policy views, it is interpretable as the extent to which rejection
of race-based preferences is based on rejection of group-based preferences
per se, independent of target group’s identity. Results show that regardless of
gender, whites’ opposition to race-based preferences is to a considerable extent
interpretable as their rejection of group-based preference policies per se.
Some caution is called for in assessing these results. First, I have used the only
data set which contains policy-view data on both race- and gender-preference
policies. The data set is taken from the well-respected General Social Survey,
but its limitations should not be overlooked. The data are from a single year
(1996) and the sample is regrettably small (N = 325 men and 405 women). Only
views on employment preferences are available, and so there is no way to tell
whether this study’s findings apply also to race-based admissions policies at
colleges and universities.
Second, indicators of new racism available in the GSS correspond to only two
of four dimensions of symbolic racism (Henry and Sears 2002), and symbolic
racism is only one of several formulations of new racism. Most of these alternative
formulations are similar to symbolic racism, but at least one is not. Dovidio et al.
(2002), distinguish between explicit consciously-held racial attitudes of the sort
considered in this study, and implicit racial attitudes, termed “aversive racism”,
which operate in an unconscious and unintentional fashion and are therefore
virtually impossible to measure in survey research and must be addressed
instead by using experimental designs (Dovidio and Gaertner 1986). Studies have
found aversive racism to influence whites’ behavior and judgment in interracial
contexts including hiring decisions. While aversive racism is not expected to
motivate whites’ views on racial policies (Dovidio and Gaertner 1986) whether or
not it does in fact has never been tested. To the extent that aversive racism may
 Whites’ Opposition to Affirmative Action • 117

influence white’s policy views, this study may have underestimated the impact of
racism on attitudes toward race-based affirmative action.
Third, the correlations between racial- and gender-preference views may have
been overestimated here. An anonymous reviewer suggested that the correlation
may have been inflated by the norm of even-handedness or reciprocity, which
provides that respondents be consistent and therefore bring a response to an
item asked later in a survey into line with a response to an similar item asked
earlier (Schuman and Presser 1996:28). Specifically, if one expressed opposition
to preferences for blacks (asked earlier in the GSS), one would tend also to
express opposition to gender-based preferences (asked later in the interview) in
order to appear fair and consistent. Studies of such effects show that they are
not particularly common and that they often do not occur even when they are
most expected (Schuman and Presser 1996). The GSS tests for question-order
effects of this sort using split-ballot designs in which the order of items is varied.
Unfortunately, no such test has been conducted with the racial- and gender-
policy attitudes used here. However, results have shown that the operation of
question-order effects is quite rare in GSS data, amounting to no more than
12 probable effects out of 500 variables tested (Smith 1990). Furthermore, to
minimize context effects similar items are often separated in surveys by buffers
of intervening items (Wanke and Schwarz 1997). In the GSS data used here the
buffer between the racial- and gender-preference policy views was substantial,
amounting to dozens of questions (the exact number depending on skips) taking
10 to 15 minutes to cover (Smith 2004). In all, the operation of the norm of
even-handedness cannot be ruled out, but it seems unlikely to have more than
modestly enhanced the robust correlations reported here.
Given these limitations, results are best regarded as provisional. Further
research in this area, including the collection of data on a fuller range of new
racism measures and a broader variety of preference policies is much needed.
But with these cautions in mind, I draw the following implication from this
study. Whites’ opposition to race-based preferences is motivated by the sort of
rejection of blacks that has come to be called new racism. But it is also motivated
by rejection of group-based preferences in general, regardless of whom they
are intended to benefit, and regardless even of whether oneself is among the
intended beneficiaries.
This latter motivation appears to be race-neutral, that is, quite distinct from
hostility or antipathy toward blacks.

Notes
1. Non-whites are excluded from this analysis as are whites with missing data
on these or other variables used in the analysis.

2. There are no available GSS items corresponding to the other two symbolic
racism dimensions, excessive demands and undeserved advantage, nor to
other formulations of new racism. The racial attitudes used here are neither
ideal nor exhaustive, but they are typical of old-fashioned and new racism
indicators used in previous research. Item wordings for these and other
118 • Social Forces Volume 85, Number 1 • September 2006

items in the analysis can be found in Davis and Smith (2003) and online
at http://webapp.icpsr.umich.edu/GSS/. The respective variable names
are RACDIF2, RACPRES, RACDIF4, WRKWAYUP, RACDIF1, RACDIF3 and
BLKSMIP. These items were recoded as necessary to give higher scores for
attitudes unfavorable to blacks.

3. Respective variable names for the gender attitudes are FEHOME, FEWORK,
FEPOL, FEHELP, FEFAM and FEPRES. Names of the policy views are NATRACE
and FEHIRE. The demographics are AGE, EDUC, INCOME91 and REGION.

4. Comparing standardized regression coefficients between groups can be

misleading if variables’ variances differ between groups. Comparison of non-
standardized regression coefficients is preferred (Pedhazur 1982), and here
also shows a significantly stronger relationship for men than women (B =
.437 v B = .278; t = 2.84, p < .05).

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