Faculty Sponsor: Jennifer Rose
Live Poster Session: Zoom Link
Olivia Daigneault
Olivia Daigneault is a junior at Wesleyan University double-majoring in Government and Italian Studies with a concentration in International Relations and a minor in Global Engagement. As a member of Notably Sharp, Wesleyan’s Best Dressed A Cappella group, and an actor in Wesleyan’s SpikeTape, she is regularly involved in music and student theater on campus. She is currently an Executive Intern at the CT Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities and a Facility Assistant at Usdan.
Abstract: This study investigates how political affiliation and gender influence the perception of reverse discrimination in equitable hiring policies for minority groups, using data from the US General Social Survey (GSS). Utilizing multivariate logistic regression, the analysis found that as political conservatism increases, respondents are significantly more likely to perceive these hiring policies as unfair (OR = 0.865). Furthermore, gender significantly moderates this relationship, with women having about 12% lower odds of perceiving reverse discrimination as likely compared to men. These findings contribute to understanding how attitudes toward progressive policies fracture along partisan and gender lines in American public opinion.