Quoted: In another set of experiments, social psychologist Amanda Brodish at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research showed that prejudice may play a role, too. Whites with high levels of prejudice — who think blacks are not as smart as whites, who think blacks and whites are inherently unequal, and who reported being uncomfortable with a black roommate — invariably evaluated racial equality only in comparison with the past.
By contrast, said Brodish’s co-author, Patricia Devine of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, low-prejudice whites were equally willing to apply the yardsticks of both past and future.