ABSTRACT
In September of 1980, Educational Testing Service (ETS) formalized a review process for test items that had been evolving for at least a decade. The codification of this process warranted a publication, the ETS Test Sensitivity Review Process (ETS, 1980), developed by a White assistant director of the Office of Corporate Quality Assurance, Ronald Hunter, and a Black test developer, Carole Slaughter, and reviewed by pretty much everyone within the corporation who could read. The introduction to this document, quoting from the Principles, Policies and Procedural Guidelines Regarding ETS Products and Services (ETS, 1979)—the immediate forerunner of the current ETS Standards for Quality and Fairness (ETS, 1987)—gives two goals for the sensitivity review process: It was to ensure that “specifications for tests [w]ould require material reflecting the cultural background and contributions of women, minorities, and other subgroups” (p. 24), and it committed the company to producing tests that contain no “language, symbols or content which are generally considered potentially offensive, inappropriate for major subgroups of the test-taking population or serving to perpetuate any negative attitude which may be conveyed toward these subgroups” (p. 25). The 1980 Guidelines go on to acknowledge that although they “can be applied to any population group, experience has shown that a particularly vigilant effort must be made to evaluate … tests from the perspectives of the following groups: Asian Americans, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and women” (p. 5).
