Thinking Change: Race, Framing and the Public Conversation on Diversity. What Social Science Tells Advocates About Winning Support for Racial Justice Policies.

Decades of research, practical experience and just plain common sense have yielded one irrefutable fact: Diversity is the engine that drives a healthy U.S. democracy and economy. Despite that fact, America’s public and private institutions have not yet achieved full, meaningful diversity, and the gains that have been made are under continuous attack. That’s in spite of the crucial 2003 Supreme Court decision approving the University of Michigan Law School’s admissions system, which was designed to admit a “critical mass” of non-White male and female students and White female students. The law school’s program was strongly supported in virtually every quarter of society, including the military, Fortune 500 businesses, educators and psychologists. They not only supported it, they articulated the importance of diversity to citizenship and the future of our country. The Court’s ruling fell short, however, because it failed to require strategies to promote diversity, even as it formally recognized its importance to our country’s well-being. That may be why foes of diversity have regrouped and are aggressively attacking scholarship and mentoring programs and other strategies to make colleges and universities more diverse.

If these attacks on higher education diversity programs are successful, the impact will extend beyond the realm of access to advanced degrees. It could turn back the clock on the progress America has made in creating a diverse workplace. With less diversity in education and our workforce, our interpersonal contacts with people from different backgrounds will be even more fractured. Our society will be less harmonious and our democracy irreparably harmed. Yet the research shows that many Americans are ambivalent about supporting programs to achieve diversity.

This ambivalence most likely stems from the intellectually-fl awed dialogues our society uses to debate diversity, a concept called “framing.” Framing relates to how people think, which shapes how they process research and arguments.

We all have cognitive frames, or mental structures, that we use to process and interpret information.(1) Frames operate subconsciously, but are very powerful and diffi cult to alter. This is because frames consist of values, metaphors, symbols, language, messages, and messengers…and they may differ dramatically for each individual. Frames help us create meaning and they mediate our perceptions of reality. The frame is the core idea, or narrative.(2) A frame triggers a domino effect that unlocks other related ideas. Multiple frames form parts of larger packages—constellations of metaphors, catch-phrases, and other condensing symbols(3)—what some refer to as meta-frames. Metaphors are an especially powerful frame element. They not only describe reality, but also construct it. Metaphors judge, infl uence, and persuade.

For example, affi rmative action is currently framed around perceived merit, or lack thereof – and unfairness to Whites.(4) Anti-affi rmative action initiatives have mastered the use of co-opting civil rights language to confuse voters. This tactic obscures the benefi ts of diversity to key constituencies, like White women, and to society as a whole. When society and all its members fail to see the broad context of how and why race-conscious polices are created—ultimately ignoring the structural barriers to opportunity that many women and people of color still experience—it’s easy to understand how an individual could conclude that race (and gender) conscious programs seem unfair.

Couple that attitude with the lack of a public sensibility about the benefi ts of diversity in America, and the problem is only compounded. We must expand the public’s ability to recognize and acknowledge the nuanced ways in which structural barriers continue to hobble women and all people of color. Also, we have to stress the message that our society as a whole benefi ts when we expand opportunities to those who have been denied throughout history. Only then will we open up a public discussion that can nurture increased public support for dismantling the racial hierarchy that exists in this country, and promote an enlightened understanding of the need for race- and gender-conscious programs. If the conversation remains unchanged, we will lose.

There is reason for optimism. Social science research tells us that it is possible to infl uence behaviors, attitudes and opinions. Experience tells us this, too. For example, over the past 40 years the Political Right has elevated the frames of individualism and limited government as part of a long-term strategy to reverse civil rights and public welfare programs. Recognizing that perception is stronger than reality and that emotion is a crucial element in manipulating perception, the late Lee Atwater, a Republican strategist and former head of the Republican National Committee, spoke the line that has become a mantra: “When we want your opinion, we’ll give it to you.”(5) The Right’s success in championing individualism and limited government–often to the detriment of many vulnerable sectors of society–is based in part on the power of framing. They’ve also succeeded in embedding these frames so strongly in the American consciousness that they’ve caused people to change their attitudes and behavior around issues like diversity.

This report examines the debate around prodiversity campaign strategy. It scrutinizes the tools we have typically used to advance these strategies and analyzes the pertinent social science research that could support and advance our strategies. We begin with an overview of traditional strategies, their strengths and limitations, and what questions these limitations raise. Next, we’ll examine previous campaigns and the tools used to make them successful. Then we’ll review and analyze relevant social science research on opinions and how they are molded and infl uenced. The report concludes by quantifying the implications of the research, and offers a detailed look at current strategies for moving forward.

Taken together, research across a broad range of disciplines suggests the following:

• The concept of framing, or the ways ideas are shaped and presented to the public, is very powerful. Framing affects our response to data and research. Studies show that if the data and research do not fit the frame, people tend to reject the data and research, not the frame.

• Group identity shapes racial attitudes and behavior. Facts and self-interest are not as important as values and identity in infl uencing behavior.

• Context and environmental factors shape and shift our identity, attitudes and behaviors.

• How we construct the discussion around race can influence our behaviors and attitudes.

The good news is that the research also yields strategies for changing the public conversation. Because Americans are psycho-socially complex, and often juggle multiple identities in the workplace, home, and social realms, we need an array of strategies to promote meaningful support for diversity. This requires work on multiple levels, including medium and long-term cognitive framing and public education campaigns which influence the behavior of public opinion leaders and others. It also requires short-term tactical strategies in states or localities where individual battles around affi rmative action are joined, producing results that begin to shift the dominant frames.

These framing strategies must overlap and complement each other. They must be coordinated with targeted policy reforms and program agendas as a supportive foundation for race-conscious policy advocates. Framing, coupled with targeted public education and campaign strategies, must anticipate the contextual realities of different regions of the country. Also, different frames may be required to move different constituencies in different parts of the country. Developing and coordinating these multiple strategies would mark a new tactical frontier for advocates to build long-term support and sustainable change in public policy.

To accomplish this, we must cultivate a broader range of tools to engage target constituencies. Typically, focus groups and polling research have been our main strategies for creating and testing messages to influence the public on the importance of race-conscious policies. As important as these tools are, they have not helped us master the art of framing, or taught us to shape new identities and behaviors in ways that can significantly influence policy. We need to develop and use tools that incorporate contextual and environmental conditions, which will elicit a productive discussion around racial and gender hierarchy among target groups. With those tools, we will have the power to broker the conversation, which will enable deeper and more nuanced discussions about who we are and what opportunities we have.

(1) GEORGE LAKOFF, DON’T THINK OF AN ELEPHANT: KNOW YOUR VALUES AND FRAME THE DEBATE xi-xii (Chelsea Green Publishing Co. 2004).

(2) William A. Gamson and Andre Modigliani, The Changing Culture of Affi rmative Action, 3 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY 137, 143 (1987).

(3) Id.

(4) Recent polls confi rm this perception, showing that while many Americans support racial diversity, much fewer support affi rmative action programs, which they see as preferences for non-Whites. See Will Lester, Poll Finds 80% Support College Diversity, But Only Half Consider Affi rmative Action Vital, DETROIT FREE PRESS, March 8, 2003, available at http://www.freep.com/news/education/affi rm8_20030308.htm (summarizing a poll conducted by ICR/ International Communications Research of Media, Pa. for the Associated Press, which found that 4 out of 5 adults and 80 percent of young adults polled think it’s important for colleges to have racially diverse student bodies; but also finding only 50 percent of adults and 60 percent of young adults think affi rmative action programs remain necessary); see also U.S. EMBASSY, INFORMATION RESOURCE CENTER, Affirmative Action, at www.usembassy.de/usa/classroom/affifi rmativeaction.htm (reprinting the results of a January 19-21, 2003 NBC News/ Wall Street Journal national poll conducted by Peter Hart and Robert Teeter which found that of 500 adults polled, only 26 percent support the public universities’ “use of race as one of the factors in admissions to increase diversity in the student body”).

(5) Glenn Feldman, Ugly Roots: Race, Emotion, and the Rise of the Modern Republican Party in Alabama and the South, in BEFORE BROWN: CIVIL RIGHTS AND WHITE BACKLASH IN THE MODERN SOUTH 302, 268-309 (Glenn Feldman ed., University of Alabama Press 2004).