Almost no research traces how affirmative action actually operates in hiring offices

Evidence

There are, in contrast, huge holes in the corpus of what we know about how affirmative action actually works in practice. For example, we know very little about just how people are hired or admitted to most universities. When is race or gender a tie-breaker; when does minority status still count against the applicant; when are less-qualified African Americans or women hired/admitted over more qualified whites, Asians, or men; when does the reverse occur? Do certain kinds of professional schools or firms consistently treat affirmative action in ways different from that of other kinds of professional schools or firms? I know of virtually no research within and across nonelite university admissions offices, corporate personnel offices, professional schools’ admissions offices, or police or fire departments that carefully traces these processes and analyzes them comparatively or theoretically. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1951