ITHACA, N.Y. -- Is affirmative action a good thing? A healthy majority of New York state's residents believe it is. But New Yorkers are fairly evenly divided in their opinions on the use of affirmative action policies in the hiring of employees as well as in college admissions, and views can differ sharply by gender, ethnicity and location.

The findings were among of the results of the first Empire State Poll, an ongoing opinion poll of New York residents conducted by Cornell University's Survey Research Institute (SRI).

The results are especially pertinent in light of this week's Supreme Court rulings, which affirmed the University of Michigan's right to consider race in its admissions policies but rejected assigning points for race, among other factors, to undergraduate applicants.

"A sizable majority of New York state residents, even more so than nationally, believe that affirmative action in general is still desirable," says Yasamin Miller, director of SRI. "Sixty-one percent of our Empire State Poll respondents believe that affirmative action programs are still needed today. That's 10 percentage points higher than a similar Associated Press national poll conducted in February and March of this year," she notes.

In addition, says Miller, "the June results from our continuing polling effort show that 53 percent of New York state residents support affirmative action policies in the hiring of employees, but fewer people, 48 percent, support the use of affirmative action in college admissions."

The poll's results also reveal conflicting views among residents about who wins and who loses with affirmative action programs. Asked which they considered the larger problem, blacks and Hispanics losing out as a result of racism or whites losing out because of affirmative action, 47 percent said the worst alternative was those losing out due to racism. Of the rest, 26 percent stated that whites lose out more because of affirmative action, and 27 percent were undecided.

However, when the views of different segments of the population are compared, the gaps between them are much wider. Of those polled, 74 percent of nonwhite New York residents support affirmative action policies in the hiring of employees and in college admissions. In contrast, among white residents only 43 percent support affirmative action in hiring and 38 percent in college admissions. Additionally, 58 percent of women polled support affirmative action policies in hiring, 10 percent higher than among men. And 55 percent of women support affirmation action in college admissions, while only 43 percent of the men do, an even wider gap.

Support for affirmative action within New York state also varies geographically, the poll shows. Forty-seven percent of those polled who are upstate residents support the use of affirmative action in hiring, and 45 percent support it in college admissions, compared with 56 percent and 53 percent, respectively, of those polled who are downstate residents.

When asked whether they believe affirmative action is still needed and who wins or loses with affirmative action programs, those polled revealed an even wider breach in opinions. Sixty-seven percent of the downstate residents stated they believe affirmative action is still needed, compared with 54 percent of those who are upstate residents. And 33 percent of those who are upstate residents believe that whites losing out as a result of affirmative action is more of a problem than blacks and Hispanics losing out because of racism, compared with 22 percent from downstate. In contrast, 53 percent of the downstate residents believe blacks and Hispanics losing out because of racism is the larger problem, compared with only 37 percent of upstate residents who believe it is.

Those and other survey results from the Empire State Poll Project are based on 717 statewide telephone survey interviews conducted between March 15 and June 22, 2003. All reported results are weighted for the population distribution between downstate and upstate areas of New York and for white and nonwhite populations. "Downstate" is defined as New York, Rockland, Kings, Richmond, Westchester, Suffolk, Queens, Nassau and Bronx counties, with the remaining counties of the state defined as "upstate." Results are statistically significant at a plus/minus 3.7 percent margin of error. The error margin increases for cross-tabulations. For more on the survey results and the Empire State Poll, see this Web site: http://www.sri.cornell.edu .

About the Survey Research Institute at Cornell: SRI conducts sophisticated survey research on a par with other top U.S. polling agencies. With a state-of-the-art data collection and analysis facility in the heart of Cornell's campus and a highly trained staff, SRI has conducted major national and state studies on health and safety issues of New York City firefighters, major trends in telecommunication, rising tuition at universities, how people cope with aging and careers, and such topical issues as support for civil liberties and the war in Iraq. It is also is an important learning environment for Cornell students. For information, contact Yasamin Miller at (607) 255-0148 or yd17@cornell.edu or Erik Nisbet at (607) 255-0375 or ecn1@cornell.edu .