A race-conscious policy is a policy that aims to improve the conditions of racial minorities. In the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, such policies are typically aimed at improving the status of

African-Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

. Many different kinds of race-conscious policies exist, ranging from nondiscrimination policy to strict numerical

racial quota Racial quotas in employment and education are numerical requirements or quotas for hiring, promoting, admitting and/or graduating members of a particular racial group. Racial quotas are often established as means of diminishing racial discrimi ...

s. Their main purpose is twofold: to compensate for past discrimination against the target race, and to increase

equality of opportunity Equal opportunity is a state of fairness in which individuals are treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers, prejudices, or preferences, except when particular distinctions can be explicitly justified. For example, the intent of equa ...

Education

In the

, race-conscious policies like

desegregation busing Desegregation busing (also known as integrated busing, forced busing, or simply busing) was an attempt to diversify the racial make-up of schools in the United States by transporting students to more distant schools with less diverse student pop ...

have long been used to counteract school segregation. The

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

ruled in favor of those measures more often in the 1960s and the 1970s than it has since then.

International variations

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, unlike many other countries in

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...

(including the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

), has avoided adopting race-conscious policies. Variations in the policies between the United Kingdom and France are in large part by the different frames through which the policies were portrayed in both countries.

Public opinion

In the United States, whites are the least supportive of race-conscious policies, and blacks are the most supportive of them. Latinos and Asians take intermediate stances in their opinions of those policies. That pattern persists after controlling for measures of

racial prejudice Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race or ethnicity over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination ...

, class status, and other factors. Among white liberals, racial resentment predicts support for race-conscious programs only for black students. In contrast, among white conservatives, racial resentment is closely related to opposition to such programs regardless of the recipient's race.

References

{{Reflist Race and law Racism Politics and race Social policy

Education

International variations

Public opinion

See also

References