Affirmative action stigmatizes minority students, study finds

“If white students believe that many of their black peers would not be at a college were it not for affirmative action and, more important, if black students perceive whites to believe that, then affirmation action may indeed undermine minority-group members’ academic performance by heightening the social stigma they already experience because of race or ethnicity,” Massey and his three collaborators wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education on March 27.

The researchers also presented another detriment of the controversial policy: “that affirmative action exacerbates the psychological burdens that minority students must carry on campuses.”

“Those who feel they are representing their race every time they are called on to perform academically will have a heightened sense of responsibility,” they wrote.

In the study, the researchers examined affirmative action at 28 universities across the country, comparing the SAT scores and current GPAs of a broad range of students as indicators of academic success.

“We have used SAT scores to measure the impact of affirmative action not because they are ideal, but because they offer a practical method that can be applied across groups and institutions,” they wrote.

The study, which focused on the academic performance of roughly 4,000 individuals, found that 84 percent of black students had test scores below their institutions’ averages, compared with roughly 66 percent of Hispanics.

“In places where there’s a large difference between the minority average and the institutional average, it seems to create a climate that makes it difficult for minority students to perform because ... it exacerbates stereotypes,” Massey explained in an interview.

To measure affirmative action at a given institution, the researchers used the difference between the mean SAT score earned by blacks or Hispanics and the mean score earned by all students at that institution.

Researchers found that the greater the discrepancy in SAT scores between black and Hispanic students and others on a specific campus, the lower the grades earned by those minorities on the campus.

They argued the lower grades were caused by a heightened social stigma and increased academic performance pressure experienced by minority students.

“If you frame [affirmative action] as a process of letting less qualified people in and giving them remedial help, it gives them a stigma,” Massey said. “If you frame it as an attempt to bring a diversity of talents to a campus, then it mitigates the effect.”

Students at Princeton largely have been able to avoid such stigmas and increased academic pressure, Massey said.

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“Princeton seems to have, in my experience, a good record of diversity and is able to celebrate diversity for its own sake, rather than framing the issue as letting in unqualified students and giving them remedial help,” he said.

Oscar Castro ’09, former president of the Latino group Chicano Caucus, said that many minority students do not generally believe that “aggressive affirmative action is really in place here,” citing that Princeton’s demographic breakdown does not match national proportions. Latino students are underrepresented at Princeton in comparison to the corresponding U.S. Hispanic population, Castro said.

The study also said that a discrepancy exists between racial affirmative action and two other recipients of preferential treatment at selective universities — athletes and children of alumni.

“If minority students were welcomed and supported at selective institutions in the same way that star athletes and legacy students routinely are, the grade performance of black and Latino students might improve markedly,” the report read. “But, if anything, elite colleges and universities now seem to be doing the opposite of wisely intervening in support of minority students.”

“Athletic scholarships have been accepted as part of higher education for along time, not in the Ivy League obviously, but in other elite schools,” Massey said. “Legacy recruitment is as pervasive. Both athletics and legacy recruitment are built into the social structure of elite higher education in the way that racial affirmative action is not, since it only came about in the 1970s.”

While minority students may not worry about being admitted based on affirmative action, Castro said, others may view their college acceptance with stigma and suspicion.

“I’ve never heard anyone express that they felt they were let in [to Princeton] because they were a minority,” he said, noting that such students have the same qualifications as other applicants.

On the contrary, Castro said he believes that there is generally more suspicion that admitted students “might have gotten in because their parents went here, or they have a lot of money, or because they’re athletes.”

Still, Castro noted that some of his friends found such stigmas more prevalent in high school.

“When their peers found out they got into Princeton, they expressed those sentiments of, ‘You only got in because you’re a minority,’ ” he said.

Another recent study conducted by sociology professor Thomas Espenshade and Office of Population Research programmer Chang Young Chung found that eliminating the SAT as an admissions requirement would increase the admit rates of minority and economically disadvantaged students.

Massey agreed that removing the SAT from admission requirements could enhance diversity among the student body.

“We know that SAT scores don’t accurately represent ability, of minority groups in particular, and that they under-predict their actual performance,” he explained. “So placing less weight on SAT scores increases access to elite higher education for a wider set of people.”

Though he does not object to the SAT “as one element of a broader set of indicators,” Massey said, he added that throughout his 30 years in academia, “I’ve seen a lot of different scores, and I’ve come to appreciate how imperfect a vehicle it is to predict how students will do.”