A third of white Americans have no association with the phrase affirmative action

Evidence

Surveys provide several results crucial to my claim that the debate over affirmative action is more symbolic than substantive. About a third of white Americans cannot make any association with the phrase “affirmative action” (Steeh and Krysan, 1996:129). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1988

Categorization

• QUESTION: Would a third of Americans today (decades later) still fail to associate ‘affirmative action’? The figure is a striking baseline worth checking against contemporary polling.