African American Popular Wisdom Versus the Qualification Question: Is Affirmative Action Merit-based?

There are two clashing beliefs about affirmative action: one is that affirmative action is a system of racial preferences that discriminates against innocent whites and results in the employment of unqualified or less qualified blacks and Latinos; the other is that affirmative action is merit-based and that blacks and Latinos must be better qualified than whites just to have the same education or job. College admission test scores and academic grades seem to be the most discussed way of assessing merit. However, since the education market feeds into the much larger labor market, the labor market is the place to look for outcomes. And labor market outcomes provide no evidence that an explicit policy of affirmative action in education or hiring results in the employment of blacks who are less able than white workers. Rather, given similar socioeconomic backgrounds, it is white workers and students who are more likely to be less qualified by education and actual on-the-job experience.