After months of studying for the Law School Admissions Test, an African American man and a Puerto Rican woman arrive at their testing sites. At the African American man's site, the proctor directs all minority examinees to sit beside a noisy air conditioner. He lets Caucasian examinees sit on the room's quieter side. At the Puerto Rican woman's site, the proctor treats all examinees equally. Later, the man and woman are horrified to learn that their scores fell below the 145-point cutoff for admission to most law schools. Neither receives an offer from any school that year.

The proctor's individual racism at the first testing site is obvious because it conforms to the popular belief that racism entails the actions of a few bigots. However, another ...