Is Anti-White Bias a Problem?

Introduction

Anna Otto

In what some have called the new post-racial era, what constitutes discrimination is shifting. The landmark Supreme Court case, Ricci v. DeStefano, for example, ruled that white firefighters suffered discrimination when their employer threw out a promotional exam because none of the African-American firefighters who took the test qualified for promotion.

A new study by Michael Norton and Samuel Sommers has found that Americans think significant progress has been made in the fight against anti-black bias. But white Americans perceived that progress as coming at their expense and that anti-white bias has become a bigger societal problem than anti-black bias.

Is this finding surprising? Do we see this view reflected in government policies or court decisions? If so, how?

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Debaters

When Prejudice Is So Malleable

Patricia J. Williams, professor, Columbia Law School
Overt Vs. Covert

David E. Bernstein, law professor, George Mason University
White Folks Shouldn’t Worry

Paul Butler, Law professor and former prosecutor
An Old Source of Resentment

Abigail Thernstrom, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
Affirmative Action and Public Opinion

Jeffrey Rosen, co-editor, "Constitution 3.0"
A Broader Societal Shift

Victoria C. Plaut, U.C. Berkeley Law School
Jockeying for Stigma

Michael I. Norton, Harvard University and Samuel R. Sommers, psychologist, Tufts University