Young whites view race with rose-tinted glasses

Ahead of Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, research shows millennials are split by race on the practice.

By Sean McElwee & Jesse Rhodes, Al Jazeera America

The United States Supreme Court’s decision to review the constitutionality of the University of Texas at Austin’s affirmative action program has brought renewed debate about the practice. While social science largely supports the proposition that affirmative action is beneficial to African-American and Latino applicants, many Americans feel that policies to remedy racial inequality or to ensure diversity are unnecessary. In 2003, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor famously put an expiration date on racism, expressing a hope that 25 years from then, affirmative action would no longer be necessary.