ABSTRACT
Many social scientists interpret whites’ rejection of policies of preferential treatment for minorities as evidence of continued widespread racism. The most striking example of the continuing influence of the association between traditional values and bigotry is contained in work that attributes the continuing opposition to many civil rights policies to a subtle new form of racism. People who express disagreement with affirmative action policies favoring minorities in university admissions, for instance, and who justify their objections on the basis of a commitment to the American values of self-reliance and equal treatment, are said to use those traditional values as a disguise for opposition to equality. In any case, just about anyone who disagreed with the liberal policy agenda of the time would have been classified as a symbolic racist by the questionnaire, and it is hardly surprising that so many of the respondents were so labeled.
