Gatekeepers may tell rejected white candidates they lost out to affirmative action

Evidence

Another set of questions: how many whites or men are told by admissions officers or personnel directors that they would have been hired/admitted if it were not for affirmative action pressures? After all, that is an easy and mutually gratifying response from a gatekeeper to an angry or disappointed candidate — and to many such candidates in a row, so long as each is addressed in the absence of the others. An example: one man reported on an e-mail list his stellar undergraduate record and his admission to several excellent law schools, but with little funding. “At least three admissions counselors stated outright, and others implied, that had I been anything but white male and had those numbers [GPA, LSAT scores etc.], I would’ve been immediately full-ride plus living expenses” (Finley, 1996). If his experience occurs frequently, that would explain why so many more whites than is arithmetically possible believe that they or someone they know about was denied a job or promotion because of affirmative action. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1955

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Milgrom’s work on how institutional gatekeepers shape perceived reality; also to the deeper noise/silence theme of how offhand rationalizations distort public belief.
• SEED: An essay angle: the unexamined role of gatekeeper rationalizations in manufacturing public grievances — how an excuse told to each candidate privately compounds into a mass false belief far exceeding arithmetic possibility.