Affirmative action’s symbolic importance vastly exceeds its measurable effects

Evidence

Why are a lot of people so exercised over this particular policy, which distributes outcomes about as most other policies do and which has done less to change American racial hierarchies than have a variety of other less controversial policies? And why is the empirical base for understanding the practice and effects of affirmative action so thin and in most cases publicly invisible compared with the rich philosophical and legal arguments that the issue has evoked? — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1999

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Affirmative action controversies expose anxieties about the American dream more than policy mechanics — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1642