The Bakke Decision

Two theoretical models make contradictory predictions about attitudinal reactions to dramatic events in society that affect race relations. The proximity-resistance model predicts increased resistance, affected by important events that favor blacks, from whites. This model also predicts lessened hostility when the events favor whites. The social-adjustment model, on the other hand, predicts that the people most affected by ongoing events will change their attitudes toward consistency with the expected changes. These two models are tested in an examination of public reactions to the Bakke decision on affirmative action programs. Data collected in national surveys by the Louis Harris polling organization in 1976 and in 1978 after the well-known Bakke case are used to examine attitudinal changes by specific demographic groups—those least and those most affected by the changes. The results are interpreted as supporting, in general, the social-adjustment model.