Affirmative action and standardized test scores

African Americans are faced with the threat of losing affirmative action as a legal vehicle for taking race and racial context into account. In education, its removal would mean greater reliance on "objective" indices such as SAT scores. This article presents analyses which show that racial context influences the SAT's ability to predict Black students' collegiate success. First, SAT items are shown to denigrate the Black experience and demonstrate a bias toward science. Thereafter, the test's predictive validity is shown to depend on college racial environment, adjustment issues, gender, and Black identity factors. Thus, whereas the nation may do away with mandates that consider race and racial context, these forces continue to influence the performance and lives of Black students.