Institutional Racism

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 form of racism lurks within this story. The law school cutoff score prompts the rejection of nearly half of all African American and Puerto Rican applicants whose college grades otherwise would qualify them for admission, whereas only 20% of Caucasian students are rejected under these circumstances. Although law schools recognize standardized tests' limited ability to predict academic performance, they continue to weight test scores heavily in admissions decisions. Some schools justify the practice as an efficient processing method, but few acknowledge the real issue: institutional racism.

Institutional racism refers to the intentional or unintentional manipulation or toleration of institutional policies that unfairly restrict the opportunities of particular groups of people. Unlike individual racism, which involves the adverse behavior of one person or a small group of people, institutional racism comprises the adverse behavior of organizations or institutions. Aside from law school admissions, institutional racism appears in mental health care, the judicial system, business, politics, education, the media, and medicine. Given the insidiousness of institutional racism, individuals must understand how it permeates organizational structures, how it can be detected, and how it can be overcome. The historical background of institutional racism, its characteristics, and strategies for its elimination are outlined here.