Surveying ‘fair treatment’ cannot cleanly measure racial attitudes because whites can deem segregation fair.

Evidence

A final issue with this question unrelated to its consistency across time is that “fair treatment” is vague. If one believes that blacks are innately inferior or that the races should not mix, then limiting blacks to low-status jobs and segregated housing could be viewed as “fair.” Indeed, in 1958, the ANES specifically asks respondents to explain their views about school integration. Among those whose views were classified by ANES as “anti-Negro,” still only 32% percent disagreed that government should ensure “fair treatment” for blacks in the area of jobs and housing. This cross-tabulation suggests the notion of fairness in the jobs/housing question may be so vague as to be meaningless. — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 1337

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is direct methodological ammunition: if ‘fair treatment’ wording captures near-universal assent even among self-rated anti-Negro whites, then most racial-attitude survey items of the era likely suffer from wording-induced ceiling effects — worth chasing which other classic items share this flaw.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s threatened-privilege project: vague ‘fairness’ items let privileged respondents answer in ways that encode hierarchy-maintenance while reading as egalitarian — parallels the gap between stated fairness norms and revealed zero-sum behavior. — connects to: Social desirability bias does not currently invalidate survey measures of racial attitudes. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2200; Racism statistics may measure the collectors, not the facts — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3138; Survey measures understate White racial prejudice due to social desirability
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 1337

Broader Connections

• Social desirability bias does not currently invalidate survey measures of racial attitudes. #contradicts (0.80) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2200
• Survey measures understate White racial prejudice due to social desirability #contradicts (0.75)
• Racism statistics may measure the collectors, not the facts #corroborates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3138