Here's what the New York Times did not mention about the bus bias study
describes an experiment:
With more than 1,500 observations, the study uncovered substantial, statistically significant race discrimination. Bus drivers were twice as willing to let white testers ride free as black testers (72 percent versus 36 percent of the time). Bus drivers showed some relative favoritism toward testers who shared their own race, but even black drivers still favored white testers over black testers (allowing free rides 83 percent versus 68 percent of the time).
The title of Ayres' op-ed was: "When Whites Get a Free Pass: Research Shows White Privilege Is Real."
The op-ed linked to this study, by Redzo Mujcic and Paul Frijters, which summarized some of the study's results in the figure below:
The experiment involved members of four races, but the op-ed ignored results for Asians and Indians. I can't think of a good reason to ignore results for Asians and Indians, but it does make it easier for Ayres to claim that:
A field experiment about who gets free bus rides in Brisbane, a city on the eastern coast of Australia, shows that even today, whites get special privileges, particularly when other people aren't around to notice.
It would be nice if the blue, red, green, and orange bars in the figure were all the same height. But it would also be nice if the New York Times would at least acknowledge that there were four bars.
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H/T Claire Lehmann
Related: Here's what the New York Times did not mention about teacher grading bias
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