The post-hiring experience of affirmative action hires is nearly unstudied

Evidence

What happens after a person is hired or admitted in circumstances where affirmative action is presumed to have played a role? Do blacks or white women feel stigmatized, inferior, insecure? If so, do they overcompensate by rigidity or racial paranoia or timidity? Do they feel any more insecure than, for example, alumni children admitted to universities as legacies, or white working-class athletes admitted to bolster Big Ten football teams, or the boss’s nephew put in charge of the front office? Alternatively, if they do feel insecure or are stigmatized, are they able to overcome their initial obstacles and succeed at about the same rate as other workers or students? What are the processes by which people who are initially labeled as “affirmative action hires” move toward success or failure; do they have more to do with internal fortitude, organizational culture, structural opportunities, or what? — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1953

Categorization

• XREF: The contrast between legacy admits / athletes / boss’s nephew and stigmatized affirmative action hires parallels discussions of credentialing and stigma elsewhere in sociology of education.