49% Oppose Affirmative Action in College Admissions, 25% Favor
Friday, April 25, 2014
The U.S. Supreme Court this week upheld a Michigan law that prohibits the use of race as a determining factor in college admissions. Half of Americans agree with that decision, and even more think it’s better for colleges and universities to put the emphasis on ability, not race.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 25% of American Adults favor applying affirmative action policies to college admissions, unchanged from May of last year. Forty-nine percent (49%) are opposed, up from 44% in the previous survey. Twenty-six percent (26%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on April 22-23, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.