What Happens to Minority Women When We Eliminate Affirmative Action?

President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925 in 1961 introducing Affirmative Action to the American workplace. More than 40 years later, the ramifications still deeply affect millions of lives. Affirmative Action was a way to provide a more level playing field for groups that faced systemic discrimination. It initially included protected groups such as racial and ethnic minorities, but President Johnson extended it to include women as well. It had positive employment and occupational advancement effect, especially for minority women, allowing them to participate in work spheres that were previously inaccessible to them (Kurtulus 2012, Kurtulus 2015).

In 1996, California became the first state to repeal Affirmative Action in state and local government employment with the passing of Proposition 209. In the next years, other states such as Washington, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and New Hampshire did away with it as well. In this week's HKS WAPPP Seminar, Dr. Fidan Ana Kurtulus, Associate Professor Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, talked about her latest paper, which looks at the consequences of these bans on minority and female employment.

Professor Fidan Ana Kurtulus, UMASS Amherst

The repeals of Affirmative Action in these states presented the opportunity to study what researchers refer to as a 'natural experiment'. The bans were an exogenous shock that allowed Kurtulus to study the before and after share of minorities and women in the workforce of state and local government agencies where the bans went into effect as compared to the before and after shares of minority employment in places where Affirmative Action remained in place.

Another unique feature of her research is the dataset she worked with. The EEO-4 dataset has not been generally available to researches. It is a dataset that contains the demographic characteristics of  employees of state and local agencies, and covers a long time span, from 1990 to 2009. “There had not been any scientific researchers that had used these data in its full form”, explained Kurtulus, adding that she was excited to be working with this resource.

And while the dataset itself is interesting, the results of her research are even more so. Kurtulus found that once Affirmative Action is repealed, the share of Hispanic men that work in state or local government decreases by 7%; the share of black women goes down by 4%, and the share of Asian women is reduced by 37%. The figure for Asian women might seem disproportionately large but she explained that the reason for this is that there were very few Asian women in that workforce to begin with, so any change would produce a large effect. In all, the loss of workplace diversity is significant.

 “Can these results say anything to people that oppose Affirmative Action?" Kurtulus asked, and answered her own question with an emphatic 'yes', this is "data driven evidence on the implications of removing Affirmative Action". In addition, the findings are very timely. "It is very timely because other states are considering the possibility of banning Affirmative Action... A lot of the debate is really being driven by rhetoric that is not empirical in nature", she commented. This research can bridge that gap, so we can hold a debate on this issue that is better informed.

Are Two a Crowd?

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has discussed how she was often confused with Sandra Day O’Connor when they sat on the Court together, despite not looking alike and holding significantly different ideological views. It’s important to note that this mistake was not made by passersby being interviewed on late night television but by the lawyers arguing before the Court itself.

This is one of many examples that Professor Denise Lewin Loyd employed at this week’s WAPPP seminar, "Are two heads always better than one? Stereotyping of minority duos in work groups," to explain the unique problems that individuals who are part of the minority on boards, task forces or committees often face. Loyd, an Associate Professor of Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, argues that in many cases, being part of a minority duo on a larger team is even worse than being the only minority.

Past research indicates that single minorities within a group are often subject to “token pressure,” whether in the form of increased visibility, stereotyping or pressure to assimilate. Loyd conducted a study of 228 students on the issue, which concluded that this token pressure leads to discomfort, demonstrating that it’s a negative experience for the minority groups in question.

Though we might assume that token pressure would decrease when another minority member is added to the group, there is evidence to the contrary. Research featured in the Harvard Business Review even suggests that the presence of two women on a board may be seen as a subgroup and that those individuals have to give extra care to not look like they're conspiring.

Professor Loyd tested this hypothesis via an experiment she conducted with colleagues Mary Kern of Baruch College, CUNY and Judith White at Dartmouth. Using avatars, Loyd et al collected responses from 170 male participants to see how they viewed women in different settings in which they were the minority. Participants were asked to read a narrative involving a female employee who was part of a team where she was (1) the only woman, (2) one of two women or (3) one of three women on a team of seven, ten or 14. The decision-making and production tasks assigned were relatively agnostic so as to control for the fact that certain tasks may be perceived as more masculine or feminine.

Loyd et al found that women were viewed as significantly less potent and marginally warmer as part of a duo than while acting solo. While there are some limited situations where warmth is advantageous, being perceived as less potent is a clear negative. As part of a trio, women were not seen as less potent but were perceived as marginally warmer than as a duo. A second study involving female-minority groups performing a complex task revealed that men gave female duos worse performance evaluations, despite no significant difference in completion time and quality.

This research suggests that there is something uniquely negative about being part of a minority duo in a larger group. The phenomenon could be partly explained by the claim that minority duos make the category to which they belong more salient to the greater group. This could be a concern for women, who while still significantly underrepresented on corporate boards and in public office, are slowly gaining ground.