Fears of affirmative action far exceed documented harms from it

Evidence

1994, fewer than 100 charged reverse discrimination; most of those, like most claims about any kind of discrimination, were dismissed due to lack of merit (Stephanopoulos and Edley, 1995: Sec. 6.3; Blumrosen, 1995). Possibly political correctness inhibits firms from complaining about quotas, and perhaps white men suffer under the same constraint when they consider bringing charges of reverse discrimination. But surely a strong legal case would sweep aside those hypothesized constraints at least sometimes. Thus it seems safe to conclude that many more people are exercised by fears of the policy of affirmative action than are harmed by its implementation. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1994

Categorization

• SHARE: A tight empirical rebuttal worth sending to anyone who cites ‘reverse discrimination’ lawsuits as evidence of harm — fewer than 100 were ever even charged, and most were dismissed.
• 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