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Research shows that Black Americans are perceived as more “blameworthy” than White Americans for identical routine misbehavior. This bias perpetuates racial inequality in the assignment of formal organizational sanctions. To reduce evaluator bias, many organizations pair Black evaluatees with same-race evaluators, assuming that homophily and in-group preference will lead to improved outcomes for Black evaluatees. However, some studies find that matching does not benefit Black evaluatees. These mixed findings might arise if prior research confounds two potential mechanisms of matching, with carry distinct policy implications: lesser evaluator bias and better behavior by Black evaluatees. To disentangle these mechanisms, Owens leverages a video vignette experiment that randomly-assigns a national sample of Black and White teachers (N=2,176) across 1,203 schools to view identical routine misbehavior across racially-matched versus mis-matched student-evaluatees. Owens finds no bias against Black evaluatees uniquely among Black evaluators, but also no in-group preference in perceptions of blameworthiness and decisions to refer for formal sanctioning. Yet, in-group preference might exist within high-stakes sanctioning contexts. Consistent with this prediction, Owens finds evidence of in-group preference by Black-identifying evaluators towards Black evaluatees uniquely within minoritized organizations with punitive sanctioning norms. For policy and practice, findings suggest that the benefits of matching for Black evaluatees accrue largely through improved evaluatee behavior—at least on the outcomes under consideration. Findings also suggest that Black evaluators are not typically unfairly lenient towards in-group evaluatees—a claim often levied to discredit Black evaluators and rebut racial matching as a DEI effort.

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