White Americans’ Support for Class-Based Affirmative Action

Abstract: With the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to ban race-based affirmative action in college admissions, race-neutral class-based affirmative action has emerged as an alternative solution to tackle social inequities in higher education. In the current work, we focus on White Americans’ support for class-based affirmative action and examine the possibility that their support for such purportedly “race-neutral” policies is, in fact, shaped by the motivation to bolster the racial status hierarchy. Across two pre-registered studies, we find correlational (Study 1) and causal evidence (Study 2) suggesting that anti-egalitarian White Americans’ support for class-based affirmative action is driven by their expectations that such policies will benefit White Americans. Our findings suggest that support for class-based affirmative action may be strategically used to reinforce the racial hierarchy under the guise of reducing social inequities.

Keywords: Affirmative action, race, social class