Even people with consciously egalitarian values act in ways that worsen racial disparities.

Evidence

Across the country, police departments, prosecutors’ offices, the criminal defense bar, and judges are engaging in “implicit bias trainings” and other professional development devoted to increasing fairness (Maryfield, 2018). Some of these programs are clearly a response to public pressure or legal mandates (Edwards, 2016). As a result, there may be skepticism that any of these efforts are genuinely inspired by a call from within to ensure equal treatment across racial and ethnic lines. It may seem as though the actual desire to treat people equally should be enough for fairness in decision-making and behavior. Robust social science research supports the argument that even those who hold consciously egalitarian values are at risk of engaging in behavior that exacerbates rather than lessens racially disparate outcomes (Kang et al., 2011). — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1350

Categorization

• XREF: Bears directly on the reader’s core question of whether professed egalitarian conviction predicts measured bias or diverges from it. — connects to: Aversive racism pits sincere egalitarian values against unacknowledged anti-Black feelings. — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 198
• SEED: Seed angle: implicit-bias training as institutional ritual whose sincerity is suspect because programs are legally mandated — evokes the manufactured-correction question of the reader’s broader research.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 1350