Affirmative Action Causes No Reverse Discrimination
False Assumption: Civil rights protections and affirmative action do not discriminate against white people.
Written by FARAgent on February 10, 2026
In the 1960s, the Civil Rights Act aimed to end discrimination against blacks. Affirmative action soon followed, with supporters arguing it corrected systemic racism without harming whites. Elites pointed to the historical power of white ancestors to justify preferences for minorities. Figures like Derrick Johnson of the NAACP insisted no evidence showed white men facing bias. Journalists such as Erica L. Green and Nikole Hannah-Jones echoed this view, framing criticisms as unfounded.
By the 2010s, challenges arose. President Trump labeled affirmative action reverse discrimination that disadvantaged whites. His appointee Linda McMahon pushed colleges to reveal admissions data in 2018, highlighting disparities. Reports emerged of high-achieving whites and Asians denied spots at universities, while some claimed jobs went to less qualified candidates based on race. Critics noted injustices, with no clear moral basis for penalizing individuals for ancestral actions.
The debate remains hotly contested. Mounting evidence challenges the old assumption, as critics argue affirmative action creates its own form of discrimination. Supporters maintain it addresses ongoing inequities. Experts split on whether reforms are needed.
People Involved
- In the late 2010s, Erica L. Green, a New York Times White House correspondent, wrote pieces that framed claims of reverse discrimination as mere beliefs, not facts. She presented them as delusions held by critics. [1]
- Around the same time, Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, declared no evidence existed that civil rights efforts harmed white men. He stood firm on this view. [1]
- President Trump pushed back, labeling affirmative action as reverse discrimination that denied whites fair shots at colleges and jobs. He voiced these warnings repeatedly. [1]
- Linda McMahon, appointed by the Trump administration, mandated that colleges release admissions data. She aimed to pierce the veil of secrecy. [2]
- Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project and a MacArthur fellow, advanced narratives that faulted whites for black struggles. She championed racial preferences from an elite standpoint. [3]
- J.J. Spaun, a golfer of mixed German, Filipino, and Mexican heritage from a working-class family, rose through merit alone. His story quietly undercut those elite narratives. [3]
- In 2012, Barack Obama won re-election. His administration ramped up DEI initiatives that cast anti-white discrimination as justified. [4]
- Jacob Savage, a writer based in Los Angeles, tallied the drops in white male and Jewish representation in elite fields. His articles in Compact and Tablet highlighted DEI's exclusions. [5][6] He warned of purges driven by these policies. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (9)
“Notice that “reverse discrimination” is a concept, not a reality.”— Are the 57 Years of Affirmative Action a Conspiracy Theory?
“Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, said there was “no evidence that white men were discriminated against as a result of the civil rights movement, the Civil Rights Act, and efforts to rectify the long history of this country denying access to people based on race in every measurable category.””— Are the 57 Years of Affirmative Action a Conspiracy Theory?
““White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university to college,” he said, an apparent reference to affirmative action in college admissions.”— Are the 57 Years of Affirmative Action a Conspiracy Theory?
“Mrs. McMahon Orders Colleges to 'Fess Up The Trump Administration won't allow universities to hide their racial discrimination anymore.”— Mrs. McMahon Orders Colleges to 'Fess Up
“if he’s ever heard of Nikole Hannah-Jones, he despises her for winning $625,000 from the MacArthur Foundation for being a purported “genius.” The hardworking Hispanic men who voted half for Trump in 2024 really don’t like semi-black women like Hannah-Jones blaming whites for the troubles of black layabouts.”— A Matter of Preference
“Spaun has a German-American father and a half-Filipino and half-Mexican mother... I have no idea what Spaun’s individual political views are, but I doubt if he is sympathetic toward those of Nikole Hannah-Jones.”— A Matter of Preference
“The DEI Era, which seemed to begin roughly with Obama’s re-election in November 2012”— What's Trump doing right?
“A fine new article in Compact, “The Lost Generation,” by Jacob Savage, who may be even more obsessed with counting than I am, quantifies just how much young white men have been squeezed out”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“Los Angeles writer Jacob Savage can write Steve Sailer-like articles full of counting, such as his 2023 article “The Vanishing: The erasure of Jews from American life” in The Tablet. ... Now, Savage has another counting article, this one in Compact: The Vanishing White Male Writer”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
Organizations Involved
The New York Times, in its news pages, treated reverse discrimination as a conspiracy theory. It used sneer quotes and dismissed white grievances as unfounded. [1] The NAACP, as the oldest civil rights group, insisted civil rights policies caused no harm to whites. This stance reinforced the assumption. [1] Colleges hid their admissions data for decades, even as the government collected civil rights stats elsewhere. They resisted transparency. [2] Harvard only disclosed its practices when compelled by the Supreme Court. The revelations came under oath. [2] The liberal establishment pushed the idea that civil rights favored nonwhites without backlash. It shaped policy and media accordingly. [3] Mainstream media downplayed affirmative action's existence and justified it with power dynamics. This approach held for years. [4] Hollywood slashed young white male TV writers from 48 percent in 2011 to 11.9 percent by 2024. DEI mandates drove the change. [5] Ivy League schools cut Jewish enrollment from 25 percent at Harvard in the 1990s to under 10 percent now. DEI priorities guided admissions. [5] Museums like the Guggenheim and the Art Institute of Chicago removed Jewish curators and volunteers. They sought diverse boards. [5] The New York Times's Notable Fiction list shifted from including six or seven white male millennials in 2012-2014 to just two of 72 since 2021. It enforced exclusion. [6] The New Yorker published 24 millennial fiction writers but none who were white American men born after 1984. This pattern aligned with broader trends. [6] Esquire featured 53 millennial fiction writers on lists since 2020, but only one white American man. It targeted male readers yet skewed representation. [6] Stanford's Wallace Stegner Fellowship admitted zero current white male fiction or poetry fellows. Since 2020, it had just one white man among 25 fiction fellows. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (13)
“One of the weirder things about the New York Times is how it so often treats the racial preferences era that began in 1969 as more or less a racist conspiracy theory for which there is no good evidence and thus must be referred to within quotation marks.”— Are the 57 Years of Affirmative Action a Conspiracy Theory?
“Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, said there was “no evidence that white men were discriminated against as a result of the civil rights movement, the Civil Rights Act, and efforts to rectify the long history of this country denying access to people based on race in every measurable category.””— Are the 57 Years of Affirmative Action a Conspiracy Theory?
“while an enormous amount of data is routinely collected by the government for civil rights enforcement purposes, the data behind college admissions decisions have been kept almost totally secret.”— Mrs. McMahon Orders Colleges to 'Fess Up
“such as in the Supreme Court’s Harvard case in 2023, colleges are forced under oath to reveal how they decide whom to let in.”— Mrs. McMahon Orders Colleges to 'Fess Up
“The liberal establishment view has been that civil rights laws exist not to benefit all American citizens like they appear to read, but solely to benefit nonwhites, even at the cost of injustice to individual whites.”— A Matter of Preference
“In the rare instances when the mainstream media admits that affirmative action actually exists, the usual rationalization is that you can’t be racist against whites because they have power.”— What's Trump doing right?
“In 2011, the year I moved to Los Angeles, white men were 48 percent of lower-level TV writers; by 2024, they accounted for just 11.9 percent….”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“Harvard has gone from being 25% Jewish in the 1990s and 2000s to under 10% today.”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“Museum boards now diversify by getting Jews to resign. A well-respected Jewish curator at the Guggenheim is purged after she puts on a Basquiat show. At the Art Institute of Chicago, even the nice Jewish lady volunteers are terminated for having the wrong ethnic background….”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“In 2012 the Times included seven white American men under the age of 43 (the cut-off for a millennial today); in 2013 there were six, in 2014 there were six. ... By 2021, there was not one white male millennial on the “Notable Fiction” list. There were none again in 2022, and just one apiece in 2023 and 2024 (since 2021, just 2 of 72 millennials featured were white American men).”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
“Perhaps most astonishingly, not a single white American man born after 1984 has published a work of literary fiction in The New Yorker (at least 24, and probably closer to 30, younger millennials have been published in total).”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
“Esquire, a magazine ostensibly geared towards male millennials, has featured 53 millennial fiction writers on its year-end book lists since 2020. Only one was a white American man.”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
“The Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, a launching pad for young writers, currently has zero white male fiction and poetry fellows (of 25 fiction fellows since 2020, just one was a white man).”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
The Foundation
The assumption took root after the 1960s Civil Rights Act. Experts believed it corrected past exclusions of minorities without harming whites. This view overlooked the costs to qualified whites. [1] Belief in systemic racism against blacks bolstered it. Colleges felt compelled to offset this, even if data pointed to biases elsewhere. [2] Elites invoked the historical power of white ancestors to justify current discrimination. They argued whites could not suffer racism. This reinterpretation of civil rights ignored the law's text, which protected all citizens. [3] In 1978, the Bakke decision allowed discrimination against whites for classroom diversity. It banned reparations but permitted diversity rationales. At the time, diverse discussions seemed promising. [4] Past white benefits from racism supported ongoing preferences. This logic persisted two generations into affirmative action. [4] The DEI era portrayed whites as inherently flawed, deserving eternal discrimination. It framed anti-white bias as ethical. [4] DEI saw disparities as proof of white unfairness. This targeted Jewish overrepresentation, counting Jews as white for rebalancing. [5] Institutions labeled white men as overrepresented and risky. They cited imbalances in fields like TV writing to justify exclusions. [5] Publishing deemed itself 'too white,' often meaning too Jewish or male. Quotas followed, amid the Great Awokening. This hid the purges. [6] Critiques of 'litbro' culture discouraged white men from drawing on direct experiences. Obama-era MFA norms encouraged this, leading to bland autofiction. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (10)
“When asked whether protections that began in the 1960s, spurred by the passage of the Civil Rights Act, had resulted in discrimination against white men, Mr. Trump said he believed “a lot of people were very badly treated.””— Are the 57 Years of Affirmative Action a Conspiracy Theory?
“We are supposed to believe in the pervasiveness of “systemic racism” plaguing blacks.”— Mrs. McMahon Orders Colleges to 'Fess Up
“The liberal establishment view has been that civil rights laws exist not to benefit all American citizens like they appear to read, but solely to benefit nonwhites, even at the cost of injustice to individual whites. But anyway, whites can’t be the victims of racism today because their ancestors were powerful in the past and, therefore, today’s whites racially deserve to be the victims of discrimination.”— A Matter of Preference
“The 1978 Bakke decision ruled that affirmative action as reparations to make up for the past is unconstitutional, but discriminating against whites in college admissions is okay because diverse classroom discussions will therefore be so scintillatingly brilliant. Well, that didn’t happen.”— What's Trump doing right?
“Another argument has been that previous generations of whites benefited from racism. Okay, but, 56 years later, we are now two generations into the affirmative action era.”— What's Trump doing right?
“The DEI Era, which seemed to begin roughly with Obama’s re-election in November 2012, simplified this response by arguing that whites are evil and therefore deserve discrimination, now and forever.”— What's Trump doing right?
“The new DEI regime treats any disparity between groups as evidence of unfair advantage—and yet we’re supposed to think it’s a coincidence that Jewish representation plummets at the exact moment America frantically pushes to racially rebalance all high-status industries.”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“One of the weirdest aspects of the orgy of racist antiwhite hate during the Great Awokening was how the mainstream establishment went out of their way to clearly document just how viciously they wished to discriminate against white men.”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“The new DEI regime treats any disparity between groups as evidence of unfair advantage—and yet we’re supposed to think it’s a coincidence that Jewish representation plummets at the exact moment America frantically pushes to racially rebalance all high-status industries. ... When activists and journalists and executives talk about how Broadway or NPR or publishing is “too white,” what they really mean is “too Jewish.””— The Vanishing White Male Writer
“All those attacks on the “litbro,” the mockery of male literary ambition—exemplified by the sudden cultural banishment of David Foster Wallace—have had a powerfully chilling effect. ... The antiseptic legacy of Obama-era MFA programs hangs over this generation (all three of the above authors graduated from Iowa).”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
How It Spread
The New York Times spread the idea through articles that mocked reverse discrimination claims. It framed white victimhood as partisan fantasy. [1] Media vilified admissions whistleblowers. They cast them as troublemakers, not truth-tellers. [2] Investigative reporters seldom chased stories of racial bias in colleges. The topic stayed underexplored. [2] Elite narratives contrasted with public views. Americans without graduate degrees rejected excuses for racial discrimination. [3] Working-class Hispanics, through Trump votes, rebuffed anti-white blame. They scorned promoters of preferences. [3] Mainstream outlets rationalized affirmative action by denying whites could face racism due to power. This persisted over 56 years of policies. [4] HR departments enforced DEI via diversity statements. They classified Jews as white and barred them from hires. [5] Activists and media called institutions 'too white,' implying too Jewish. This pushed changes in publishing, NPR, and Broadway. [5] Literary lists from Vulture, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, and Esquire featured no white male millennials. They normalized the exclusion. [6] Prize nominations, like those from the New York Public Library Young Lions and the Center for Fiction, followed suit. Recent years saw zero white male millennial nominees. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (10)
“Thus, from the New York Times news section: Trump Says Civil Rights Led to White People Being ‘Very Badly Treated’”— Are the 57 Years of Affirmative Action a Conspiracy Theory?
“Occasionally, whistleblowers working in admissions offices divulge data, although they tended to be treated by the media as villains rather than heroes.”— Mrs. McMahon Orders Colleges to 'Fess Up
“in general, over the last half century there have been few Woodward and Bernstein-type reporters out there digging to get the straight story about racial bias in college admissions.”— Mrs. McMahon Orders Colleges to 'Fess Up
“Most Americans without graduate degrees find it difficult to conceive of justifications for discriminating on the basis of race.”— A Matter of Preference
“The hardworking Hispanic men who voted half for Trump in 2024 really don’t like semi-black women like Hannah-Jones blaming whites for the troubles of black layabouts... the typical mestizo Mexican-American male voter can imagine a future in which his hard work and that of his children leads to his grandchildren being, due to earning good marriages, notably whiter than he is.”— A Matter of Preference
“In the rare instances when the mainstream media admits that affirmative action actually exists, the usual rationalization is that you can’t be racist against whites because they have power. But if they have Power, why are we 56 years into the affirmative action era?”— What's Trump doing right?
“Another Jewish professor applies to work in the UC system. In his mandatory diversity statement, which he describes as “the most shameful piece of writing I’ve ever done,” his sole aim is to convey the impression that he hopes to be the last Jewish man they ever hire.”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“When activists and journalists and executives talk about how Broadway or NPR or publishing is “too white,” what they really mean is “too Jewish.””— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“There were no white male millennials featured in Vulture’s 2024 year-end fiction list, none in Vanity Fair’s, none in The Atlantic’s.”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
“Between 2001 and 2011, six white men won the New York Public Library’s Young Lions prize for debut fiction. Since 2020, not a single white man has even been nominated (of 25 total nominations). The past decade has seen 70 finalists for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize—with again, not a single straight white American millennial man.”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
Resulting Policies
The 1964 Civil Rights Act set the stage. Its protections, starting in the 1960s, led to affirmative action in admissions and employment. Proponents claimed no harm to whites. [1] Federal agencies housed DEI offices that upheld these ideas. Trump ordered their closure upon entering office. [1] Colleges implemented hidden racial preferences. They avoided public data releases. [2] In 2020, California voters rejected racial preferences on the ballot. This occurred amid a racial reckoning. [3] The Philadelphia Plan launched affirmative action 56 years ago. It spurred government and private discrimination against whites. [4] Biden's judicial appointments limited Jews to 8-9 of 114 slots, below the historical 20 percent. DEI hiring drove this. [5] Elite universities made DEI central to admissions. Test-optional policies helped reduce Jewish enrollment. [5] Publishing ramped up DEI quotas after 2012. It treated Jews as white and rebalanced prizes and fellowships. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (8)
“protections that began in the 1960s, spurred by the passage of the Civil Rights Act”— Are the 57 Years of Affirmative Action a Conspiracy Theory?
“Within hours of taking office, Mr. Trump ordered the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion offices that were responsible for addressing systemic discrimination against minorities and women, and last year he ordered federal agencies to halt enforcement of core tenets of the bedrock Civil Rights Act.”— Are the 57 Years of Affirmative Action a Conspiracy Theory?
“They are for this discrimination, but they don’t want to have to publicly defend racial bias against 17 year olds, so they want the public to be as ignorant about what’s happening as possible.”— Mrs. McMahon Orders Colleges to 'Fess Up
“Thus, in liberal California at the peak of the racial reckoning in 2020, the people voted against racial preferences 57–43.”— A Matter of Preference
“For 56 years, going back to the Philadelphia Plan that kicked off affirmative action, the U.S. has had numerous government and private policies of, in effect, discriminating against white individuals because they are white.”— What's Trump doing right?
“Of the 114 federal judges appointed by Joe Biden (as of this writing), just 8-9 appear to be Jewish—in a field that’s historically been at least 20% Jewish.”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
““The university has decided that DEI is the overarching principle of admissions,” one Hillel director told me.”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“But once Obama was home free, pressure started to build on even big Democratic donors. ... the Great Awokening ratcheted up racial quotas in not just the traditional quota-beset cop & fireman-type jobs, but also in the kind of heavily Jewish upscale jobs”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
Harm Caused
Critics argue that affirmative action denied top whites spots in universities and jobs. Qualified individuals suffered. [1] Mounting evidence suggests colleges discriminated against whites and Asians. This occurred openly in admissions. [2] Growing questions surround the injustice to whites from race-based policies. The public saw no reason to penalize living whites for historical wrongs. [3] Policies allegedly breached the 14th Amendment for 56 years. Whites encountered discrimination in public and private sectors. [4] Young white men lost ground in TV writing, falling from 48 percent to 11.9 percent. Careers stalled at entry levels. [5] Jewish opportunities declined in fellowships like Guggenheim and MacArthur. Numbers dropped sharply. [5] White male millennial writers faced closed doors. No National Book Award finalists emerged from them, chilling ambition and pushing evasive styles. [6] Publishing missed bold novels on American changes. White men avoided direct themes, yielding flat books. [6] The field lost sharp male critics for canon debates. Women emphasized trends over lasting works, dimming interest. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (9)
““White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university to college,” ... “people that deserve to go to a college or deserve to get a job were unable to get a job. So it was, it was a reverse discrimination.””— Are the 57 Years of Affirmative Action a Conspiracy Theory?
“everybody who is anybody in academia knows, in contrast, that almost all colleges blatantly discriminate against Asians and whites.”— Mrs. McMahon Orders Colleges to 'Fess Up
“the public has, on the whole, never appreciated the morality of discriminating against living whites to make up for discrimination against dead blacks.”— A Matter of Preference
“The justifications offered for violating the 14th Amendment’s promise of “equal protection of the laws” have been less than lucid.”— What's Trump doing right?
“A fine new article in Compact, “The Lost Generation,” by Jacob Savage... quantifies just how much young white men have been squeezed out of entry-level jobs in entertainment writing, news media, and academia.”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“Comb through the dozens of Jewish names for the 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship (I count 30-40). You’ll have a much harder time finding them 10 years later (14-16).”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“Over the course of the 2010s, the literary pipeline for white men was effectively shut down. ... Of 14 millennial finalists for the National Book Award during that same time period, exactly zero are white men.”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
“We need novels that provide an honest accounting of the last decade and the profound ruptures it brought to American life. ... Workshopped to death, shorn of swagger and toxicity —and above all, humor—these books serve more as authorial performances than as novels”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
“One thing that the publishing industry is missing out on by going all-female all-the-time is that men make much better critics at drawing attention. ... Women tend to be more focused on the Latest Thing than in cultural immortality. So, in today’s age of women writers, there is strikingly little interest in literature.”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
Downfall
The Trump administration urged white men to file EEOC complaints. It dismantled DEI offices, challenging diversity enforcement. [1] In 2023, the Supreme Court's Harvard case compelled disclosures. Colleges admitted discrimination under oath. [2] Trump's DEI critiques gained ground. Public aversion to anti-white sentiment, especially among working-class Hispanics, fueled this. [3] Diverse classrooms failed to produce exceptional insights. This undermined the Bakke rationale. [4] The Great Awokening rendered anti-white racism unfashionable. Support for the assumption waned. [4] Trump's second term deemed racism against whites unacceptable. It drew little pushback. [4] Jacob Savage's essays, including 'The Lost Generation' and 'The Vanishing,' used data to expose DEI impacts. They resonated after October 7, 2023. [5] His 2025 Compact piece counted zero white male millennials in major lists. It highlighted post-2014 exclusions. [6] Fellowship patterns showed Jewish declines mirroring white males. Critics argue this questions DEI's claims of coincidence. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (9)
“Speaking to The New York Times on Wednesday, Mr. Trump echoed grievances amplified by Vice President JD Vance and other top officials who in recent weeks have urged white men to file federal complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”— Are the 57 Years of Affirmative Action a Conspiracy Theory?
“Supreme Court’s Harvard case in 2023, colleges are forced under oath to reveal how they decide whom to let in.”— Mrs. McMahon Orders Colleges to 'Fess Up
“My new Taki's Magazine column ponders why Trump's all-out attack on DEI racial preferences has been so successful... And it’s pretty obvious that the woke are motivated by racist animus against whites, which most working-class non-whites find distasteful... The hardworking Hispanic men who voted half for Trump in 2024”— A Matter of Preference
“Well, that didn’t happen.”— What's Trump doing right?
“The Great Awokening eventually managed to make this kind of racist anti-whiteism uncool.”— What's Trump doing right?
“So, the second Trump Administration’s anti-anti-whiteism has so far largely escaped criticism for why being anti-racist is bad.”— What's Trump doing right?
“Back before October 7, 2023, not many Jews were yet willing to admit that diversity wasn’t good for the Jews. After the subsequent upsurge of approval for Hamas’ raid on Israel by the Diverse, however, Savage’s critique of DEI is catching on more broadly.”— Sailer: Why Is The Establishment So Blatantly Anti-White Male?
“It’s easy enough to trace the decline of young white men in American letters—just browse The New York Times’s “Notable Fiction” list.”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
“Comb through the dozens of Jewish names for the 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship (I count 30-40). You’ll have a much harder time finding them 10 years later (14-16). ... From 2010 through 2019 there were at least three Jews in every MacArthur Fellowship class, sometimes as many as five or six. ... Since 2020, just 0-1 Jews a year have been awarded grants.”— The Vanishing White Male Writer
Sources
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A Matter of Preferencereputable_journalism
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[4]
What's Trump doing right?opinion
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