White Americans’ Opposition to Affirmative Action, Revisited: New Racism, Principled Objections, or Both?

Abstract

In this short article, we provide an update and extension of Thomas C. Wilson’s study, “Whites’ Opposition to Affirmative Action: Rejection of Group-based Preferences as well as Rejection of Blacks.” Wilson drew on data from the 1996 General Social Survey (GSS) to revisit a long-standing debate in the racial attitudes literature concerning whether anti-black prejudice (e.g., “new racism”) or ostensibly race-neutral opposition to group-based policies generally (i.e., “principled objections”) is the primary determinant of whites’ opposition to affirmative action in the form of “preferential hiring and promotion for blacks.” We analyze data from the 2000–2018 GSS to replicate and extend key aspects of Wilson’s work. As in the prior study, we find mixed support for the new racism and principled objections perspectives, providing an important update on white Americans’ beliefs about affirmative action for the twenty-first century.