Why Race-Based Data Matters

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third in a series of three articles by Sally Lehrman, a freelance medical and science writer and Expert Fellow of the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.

Parents in Missoula, Montana, demanded that teachers learn more about Native American culture. Middle school instructors in San Francisco began to revamp their discipline policies. Students in Los Angeles organized to delay the state high school exit exam.

Using data on teacher demographics, expulsion records, test scores, and other measures, these groups identified what they saw as patterns of structural racism that led to disengagement by students of color and ultimately, fewer opportunities for higher education. "We believe institutional racism is the single largest barrier to achievement by students of color," says Alexa Hauser, who coordinates the Principals' Anti-Racist Leadership Institute in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Education is just the latest arena in which community leaders, attorneys, and social scientists have increased their reliance on race-based data to identify hidden inequalities and search for ways to address them. Civil rights specialists have demanded traffic stop information to check for racial profiling. Academic researchers have pored over job statistics to hunt for disparate treatment. And slowly, courts are beginning to respond to the potential of subtle bias in the workings of organizations that seemed open to all. Even as overt discrimination wanes in American society, the new research suggests, racism has persisted in more subtle ways, often because of policies and practices built long ago into our institutions. By focusing on embedded patterns of disparity instead of hunting for bigotry, these activists hope Americans can be more effective in rooting out racism.

"My hope is that we will stop looking for the bad actor - the "evil racist" - and look at the way all our institutions work on a foundation of stereotypes and biases," says civil rights attorney and Stanford University professor Michelle Alexander. "People have become increasingly aware of the need to collect this data to identify racial disparities and use it to solve them."

Educational tracking

School administrators and parent activists say that race-based analysis has helped them uncover stereotypes and institutional bias in everything from hiring practices and teacher placement to curriculum materials and student discipline. In effect, they say, many schools operate under a multi-faceted "tracking" process that directs some racial minorities right out of the educational system.

In the San Francisco Unified School District, for example, around 5 percent of Latinos and 4 percent of black students were enrolled in gifted or advanced placement courses in 1999, compared to 23 percent of whites. In contrast, 9 percent of African American children were suspended or expelled that year, while only 2.4 percent of whites were unable to stay in school. Yet teachers have little idea of their own differential behavior, according to Hauser of the principals' initiative. "It's pretty subconscious for most people," she says. "When it's pointed out to them, they're shocked."

While people generally have become more comfortable cross-culturally, assumptions and stereotypes still influence our perceptions of one another and limit opportunities for ethnic minorities, some scholars report. In one test of this type of unconscious bias, Stanford University linguist John Baugh measured how San Francisco Bay Area apartment renters responded to inquiries made using African American, Mexican American and Standard American English dialects. He found that African American and Mexican American voices had a much harder time making appointments in predominantly white neighborhoods.