Cultural and vernacular differences in speech between black and white children can disadvantage black children on the verbal component of standardized tests. Because black children may be exposed to English (such as AAVE) that is not as academically accepted as “standard” English spoken in white middle-class homes, they may end up with lower IQ scores because of lack of exposure to the English used in IQ tests. 


University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

To create the SAT, College Board commissioned American eugenicist Carl Brigham, who once argued that immigration needed to be strictly monitored to safeguard “American [white] intelligence”. 


The Racist History of the SAT


Larry P. V. Riles, 495 F. supp. 926 (N.D. Cal. 1979). Justia Law. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/495/926/2007878/ 

Larry P. v. Riles, 495 F. Supp. 926 (N.D. Cal. 1979)


On average and prior to 2002, black students scored 95 points behind white students on the verbal section and 105 points behind white students on the math section. Hispanic students scored 75 points behind white students on the verbal section and 70 points behind white students on the math section. 


Standardized Testing Outcome Disparities 

Racial Discrimination in the Verbal Component of Standardized Tests

Two 1998 SAT verbal sentence-completion items had similar themes. However, the question correctly answered by more black students than white students was discarded, while the question correctly answered by more white students than black students became an official SAT question. SAT questions are deemed as “reliable [acceptable] questions” if they replicate the outcomes of previous exams, in which black and hispanic students historically scored lower than white students. They justify this by validating questions in which people of "high ability" tend to answer correctly and people of "low ability" tend to answer incorrectly.


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