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About this quote

What does it mean?
Americans support affirmative action when it focuses on equal opportunity.
In plain terms
People will back affirmative action if it is about equal opportunity.
What can you take from it?
Frame policy around equal opportunity to gain public support.

Where it applies

  • campaigning
  • policy design
  • public messaging

Putting it to work

  • Highlight opportunity
  • Explain policy clearly

Questions to consider

  • What framing works best?
  • How do people define fairness?

Another view

Support may fade if specific outcomes like quotas are highlighted.

More from William Julius Wilson

  1. During the Great Depression, African Americans were faced with problems that were not unlike those experienced by the most disadvantaged groups in society.

    Permalink to quote #16
  2. I am not an Ivory Tower intellectual.

    Permalink to quote #18
  3. Crime, family dissolution, welfare, and low levels of social organization are fundamentally a consequence of the disappearance of work.

    Permalink to quote #15

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