Washington Post sounds off on poll showing many Black Americans support SCOTUS affirmative action ruling

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Tim Scott: America should ‘celebrate’ SCOTUS affirmative action decision

2024 Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott says the Supreme Court deciding to eliminate race-based admissions helps its citizens to be ‘judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin.’ 

A Thursday Washington Post article weighed in on last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision to dismantle affirmative action practices in college admissions, citing a poll showing that African Americans are "unlikely to strongly object" to the decision.

The poll also demonstrated that more Black Americans strongly support the ruling rather than oppose it, though the paper argued that the demographic has little "perceived personal connection to the policy," that "Affirmative action is difficult to poll," and that people like "race-blind policies in theory but less so in practice."

The Post staff writer Aaron Blake penned the analysis of the poll, declaring that, in line with his previous assessment that the Supreme Court’s decision "seemed unlikely to spark a significant backlash," the new poll shows that "even Black Americans are unlikely to strongly object" to it.

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A person protests outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Thursday, June 29, 2023. The Supreme Court last Thursday struck down affirmative action in college admissions, declaring race cannot be a factor and forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

He noted how, "The data, from an Economist/YouGov poll conducted after the Supreme Court’s decision, shows Americans approving of it more than 2-to-1." Blake added, "Another poll conducted after the decision, for ABC News, showed Americans approved of it by a 20-point margin."

Citing the Black people surveyed in the Economist/YouGov poll, he added, "Indeed, more of them actually approved of the decision (more than 4 in 10) than disapproved (fewer than 4 in 10). And more Black Americans ‘strongly’ approved (31 percent) than disapproved (26 percent)."

Blake pointed out that while polls have historically shown "Black Americans in favor of affirmative action" generally, other polls have shown that the group has "supported banning the use of race and ethnicity in admissions." 

Accounting for this divergence, he wrote, "If you dig a little deeper, you begin to see why that might be: the lack of a perceived personal connection to the policy."

He cited the poll once more, stating, "The YouGov poll also asked people whether they felt affirmative action had had an impact on them. Just 19 percent of Black Americans felt that it had, and just 11 percent of those who felt that way said it had affected them ‘positively.’"

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President Biden delivers remarks on the Supreme Court's affirmative action decision in the case of Students For Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President And Fellows Of Harvard College.  (Chris Kleponis / Pool/Sipa USA)

Blake also cited a previous poll from Pew, which demonstrated that "While Black Americans were more likely to view affirmative action as positive than negative, fewer than half (46 percent) saw it as mainly positive. (Twenty percent said it was a negative, while the remainder saw it as mixed or said it made no difference.)"

In terms of how Black Americans felt personally affected by such policies, he claimed the Pew poll showed that "Just 20 percent of Black Americans said they felt such policies had put them at an advantage. And strikingly, significantly more — 35 percent — actually said they felt such policies had put them at a disadvantage."

Though the author added there are "some caveats" that may help account for these results. He claimed, "Affirmative action is difficult to poll, and the results can vary widely. Polls that refer to the goals of affirmative action tend to make the policy somewhat more popular."

"People also might generally like the idea of race-blind policies in theory but less so in practice — particularly if this winds up driving down Black and Latino enrollment at selective colleges," he said, adding, "And you could also understand why people wouldn’t want to say they had been given an advantage over others, because it suggests their achievements are affected by that."

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Blake concluded that the combination of these caveats "doesn’t change how the Supreme Court’s opinion is likely to be viewed in the short term."

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The Economist/YouGov poll cited by the Post does not meet Fox News' polling standards while the ABC/Ipsos poll referenced in the article does meet those standards.