Down: Index INTRODUCTION:Research into the Impact of Affirmative Action on Whites
Dr. Fred L. Pincus is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). In 1999, Adversity.Net agreed to help Dr. Pincus locate and interview white victims of reverse discrimination. Dr. Pincus has now published several papers about this work. Adversity.Net has reproduced one such article in its entirety titled "The Social Construction of Reverse Discrimination: The Impact of Affirmative Action on Whites" (Reprinted with permission.) It may be impossible for Adversity.Net readers to regard Dr. Pincus' work as a truly objective analysis of the impact of affirmative action on whites, especially since -- at least according to my reading of his article -- he essentially says that affirmative action (including in particular race-based targets and goals) -- aren't so bad for us non-minorities. He also argues that race-based "goals and targets" are not the same as "quotas". Pincus also suggests that the phrase "reduced opportunity" is a more accurate term to describe what we think of as "reverse discrimination". Dr. Pincus was a little suspicious about Adversity.Net's reasons for wanting to publish his paper, stating his concern that we were going to hold it up as an example of how "liberal affirmative action sympathizers think". His work do ...