[dbnoch]

Until we take away our own biases, the "extra points" for under-represented minorities have to stay.

The example is: Your internal bias is already in effect before you even meet the people you are interviewing. You're only disgusted and aware of the explicit handicap example from your boss.

[aoeusnth1]

And the beatings will continue until morale improves.

Do you know if there's any evidence that affirmative action would increase, or decrease our biases? I would expect them to increase them:

1. Our brains constantly build models of the world without us asking them to. They will pattern-match regardless of the PC-status of the patterns.

2. Affirmative action reduces the average quality of marginalized groups within an institution by design.

3. from (1) and (2) we should expect implicit bias to increase, barring opposing pressure from implicit bias education - which evidence shows doesn't work (google it).

[sobani]

It's possible though it might backfire, just as conflict of interest disclosure may backfire: disclosure can increase the bias in advice because it leads advisors to feel morally licensed and strategically encouraged to exaggerate their advice even further.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/426699