{"id":39657,"date":"2011-09-29T10:07:46","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T15:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=39657"},"modified":"2013-11-09T05:42:20","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T10:42:20","slug":"how-affirmative-action-can-undermine-the-confidence-of-students-of-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/09\/29\/how-affirmative-action-can-undermine-the-confidence-of-students-of-color\/","title":{"rendered":"How Affirmative Action Can Undermine the Confidence of Students of Color"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Affirmative action policies in higher education help mediate the real race-based disadvantages that some minorities face, above and beyond class-based disadvantages that are faced by people of color and whites alike. \u00a0They have a nefarious dark side, though; a dark side that causes even people who otherwise support affirmative action to question the approach to alleviating racial inequality. \u00a0They sometimes undermine the self-confidence of minorities admitted into college, as this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.postsecret.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">PostSecret<\/a> confession suggests:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/09\/115.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-39658 aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/09\/115.jpg\" width=\"366\" height=\"481\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>College students often have a pretty poor understanding of admissions processes. \u00a0In the\u00a0absence\u00a0of any real information, it&#8217;s easy to let stereotypes and biases inform beliefs about how any individual student got into college. \u00a0A student of color, then, may be viewed as less-deserving of admission regardless of their grades, test scores, and extra-curricular activities.<\/p>\n<p>More perniciously, they may question their own qualifications for admission, even when they have significantly out-performed their white peers.<\/p>\n<p>A simple message to college students of color, for what it&#8217;s worth:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Your institution accepted you because they thought you could succeed. \u00a0Period. \u00a0You <em>belong <\/em>in college.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Affirmative action policies in higher education help mediate the real race-based disadvantages that some minorities face, above and beyond class-based disadvantages that are faced by people of color and whites alike. \u00a0They have a nefarious dark side, though; a dark side that causes even people who otherwise support affirmative action to question the approach to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[209,34,283,285],"class_list":["post-39657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-education","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39657"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58673,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39657\/revisions\/58673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}