College textbooks often present a biased interpretation of affirmative action policies

Affirmative action policies go beyond race; they now also cover women, age, disability, and veterans. But such policies are often framed by a misinterpretation of their intent. In new research into how college textbooks discuss affirmative action policies, Sherri L. Wallace and Marcus D. Allen find that such policies tend to be framed as being “controversial” rather than as being aimed towards legal redress. This leads to a conservative interpretation of affirmative action policy as being race-based, and therefore morally wrong. They argue that in order to eliminate such confusion and misinterpretations, college textbooks need to explicitly define affirmative action and spell out the policy’s intent