Race-norming

Race-norming, more formally called within-group score conversion and score adjustment strategy, is the practice of adjusting test scores to account for the race or ethnicity of the test-taker.[1] In the United States, it was first implemented by the Federal Government in 1981 with little publicity,[2] and was subsequently outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1991.[3]

Prior to being banned by the federal government, race-norming was practiced by 38 U.S. states' employment services.[4] The aim of this practice is to counteract alleged racial bias in aptitude tests administered to job applicants,[3] as well as in neuropsychological tests.[5] The argument was that it guarantees racial balance. The practice converted and compared the raw score of the test according to racial groups. The score of a black candidate is only compared to the scores of those who had the same ethnicity. If the candidate's score, which is reported within a percentile range, fell within a certain percentile when compared to white or all candidates, it would be much higher among other black candidates.[6]

Criticism

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Race-norming has been criticized as racist towards Black people and has been compared to eugenics and pseudoscientific racism.[7] In 2021, such criticisms surfaced following an announcement by the National Football League that they will cease to use the practice in determining settlements for players' injuries.[8]

University of Delaware professor Linda Gottfredson has been very critical of this practice,[9][10] as have conservative columnist George Will[11] and law professor Robert J. Delahunty.[12] Criticism was based on the perception that race-norming was biased in favor of blacks.[13] In the 1980s, the Reagan administration ordered a study into the unadjusted General Aptitude Test Battery (without race-norming); the results, released in 1989, showed that unadjusted test scores were not strongly related to job performance.[14]

On June 2, 2021, the National Football League (NFL) announced that they would halt the use of race-norming that assumed Black NFL players started out with lower cognitive functioning in a $1 billion dollar brain injury settlement.[15]

References

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  1. ^ Miller, Leslie A.; McIntire, Sandra A.; Lovler, Robert L. (2011). Foundations of Psychological Testing: A Practical Approach, Third Edition. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications. p. 50. ISBN 9781412976398.
  2. ^ Rabin, Jack (1994). "Race Norming, Validity Generalization, and Employment Testing". Handbook of Public Personnel Administration. CRC Press. p. 451. ISBN 9780824792312.
  3. ^ a b Greenlaw, Paul S.; Jensen, Sanne S. (March 1996). "Race-Norming and the Civil Rights Act of 1991". Public Personnel Management. 25 (1): 13–24. doi:10.1177/009102609602500102. S2CID 143168254.
  4. ^ Miller, Leslie; McIntire, Sandra; Lovler, Robert (2011). Foundations of Psychological Testing: A Practical Approach. SAGE. p. 50. ISBN 9781412976398.
  5. ^ Gasquoine, Philip G. (19 March 2009). "Race-Norming of Neuropsychological Tests". Neuropsychology Review. 19 (2): 250–262. doi:10.1007/s11065-009-9090-5. PMID 19294515. S2CID 13933700.
  6. ^ Edwards, John (2005-06-29). When Race Counts: The Morality of Racial Preference in Britain and America. New York: Routledge. pp. 117. ISBN 0415072921.
  7. ^ Hobson, Will. "How 'race-norming' was built into the NFL concussion settlement". The Washington Post. Retrieved 21 October 2021. Revelations about race-norming have drawn fierce blowback from players and advocates, some of whom have made comparisons to eugenics and other racist pseudoscience and social science leveraged against minority groups throughout history.
  8. ^ Dale, Maryclaire (21 October 2021). "NFL, players agree to end 'race-norming' in $1B settlement". The Associated Press. Retrieved 21 October 2021. The NFL and lawyers for thousands of retired NFL players have reached an agreement to end race-based adjustments in dementia testing in the $1 billion settlement of concussion claims, according to a proposed deal filed Wednesday in federal court.
  9. ^ Gottfredson, Linda S. (1994). "The science and politics of race-norming". American Psychologist. 49 (11): 955–963. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.464.2586. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.49.11.955. PMID 7985887.
  10. ^ Gottfredson, Linda S (December 1988). "Reconsidering fairness: A matter of social and ethical priorities". Journal of Vocational Behavior. 33 (3): 293–319. doi:10.1016/0001-8791(88)90041-3.
  11. ^ Will, George F. (23 May 1991). "Seeing Nothing Normal in 'Race-Norming'". The Baltimore Sun.
  12. ^ Delahunty, Robert J (December 1988). "Perspectives on within-group scoring". Journal of Vocational Behavior. 33 (3): 463–477. doi:10.1016/0001-8791(88)90051-6.
  13. ^ Kolb, Charles (1994). White House Daze: The Unmaming Domestic Policy in the Bush Years. New York: The Free Press. p. 256. ISBN 068486388X.
  14. ^ "Test Cases: How 'Race-Norming' Works". Newsweek. 2 June 1991.
  15. ^ "NFL to halt 'race-norming,' review Black claims". ESPN. Associated Press. 2021-06-02. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
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