"Frank L. Samson, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Miami, thinks his new research findings suggest that the definition of meritocracy used by white people is far more fluid than many would admit, and that this fluidity results in white people favoring certain policies (and groups) over others.
Specifically, he found, in a survey of white California adults, they generally favor admissions policies that place a high priority on high school grade-point averages and standardized test scores. But when these white people are focused on the success of Asian-American students, their views change...
"Sociologists have found that whites refer to 'qualifications' and a meritocratic distribution of opportunities and rewards, and the purported failure of blacks to live up to this meritocratic standard, to bolster the belief that racial inequality in the United States has some legitimacy," Samson writes in the paper. "However, the results here suggest that the importance of meritocratic criteria for whites varies depending upon certain circumstances. To wit, white Californians do not hold a principled commitment to a fixed standard of merit."...
these concerns are not just theoretical. In 2009, the University of California Board of Regents changed the admissions criteria for the system, generally eliminating the requirement of SAT subject tests."
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/13/white-definitions-merit-and-admissions-change-when-they-think-about-asian-americans
Urggghhhhhh. We gotta get away from this implicit assumption that white people are somehow able to be perfectly rational and unbiased, while non-white people are making decisions based on what will benefit their racial group. We are all biased, and the people who are going to be the worst at dealing with that are the ones who are in the most denial about it.
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