The regularity with which doctors place heart patients on certain drugs, for example, is a good measure of the quality of their care.

Really? I mean, is that enough to know? Bad, lazy doctors don’t write prescriptions for their patients but good, diligent doctors do? I haven’t direct evidence, but I’d imagine a few things:

Most heart doctors place most heart patients on similar drug regimens. That is, I imagine this distribution is unusually tight.
Where there are outliers in the drug regimens, it may well be related to demographics, not quality. Perhaps subtle differences in population age, culture, or race can alter which drugs and treatments are considered most effective. (Wandering from the main point, but that cuts both to the patients, who by age or race maybe more receptive to certain treatments, and to the doctors. Eg, what if the minority doctors tended to be younger than the white, male doctors. They may have different training which leads them to prescribe more or fewer drugs. Age might also play a factor in patient satisfaction. I think most people instinctively feel more comfortable with a sixty-something, grey-haired doctor than a late twenties one, regardless of race or sex.)

Prescribing a drug may be as likely to indicate laziness as it is diligence. “Here, just take these twice a day…”

Hekman also studied the satisfaction levels of 3,600 golfers at 66 clubs nationwide. Clubs that employed higher numbers of Latinos were rated more poorly than clubs employing fewer minorities — even when they performed identically on objective measures.

I think there is another explanation for this. I think it is about perception in the club’s focus on quality. For example, if you are buying cutlery and you look at one set which looks nice, seems well made and has a mark, “Made in Germany.” And then you look at another which looks just as nice, just as well made, but says “Made in China.” Which one gives one a better feeling? My answer is Germany. But is that racist? Does that mean I like Germans better than I like Chinese? Not really. I perceive the “Made in China” stamp as a cost-cutting measure and the “Made in Germany” stamp as a premium. I think, “They outsourced production to China to get a better deal on manufacturing.” I actually want everyone to get a good deal on manufacturing, but it still reveals to me that the company was more concerned with cost than with “premiumness” (to coin a phrase). And that introduces the question, “If they are cutting costs there, where else might they be cutting?”

Hiring Latino workers is likewise often seen as a cost-cutting measure, reminding patrons, “If they are cutting cost there…”

It isn’t that other companies don’t cut costs, it is that they may do it without reminding that patron that they are.

I don’t think the perception that outsourcing production to China or hiring Latino workers is cost-cutting is either mistaken or comments one way or the other on racism, as cost is, in fact, why most businesses that choose to do so do it.

I wonder if female and black volunteers too liked white males more.

Probably. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybDa0gSuAcg.

I would expect that members of minority groups would not be racially biased against their own group.

However, two other possibilities:

1) They may rationally discriminate against their own race (that was explanation 2 in Robin’s post)

2) Status may not be a single scale for all, but may depend on your subgroup. I recall a while ago this idea, or something like it, was popular on the economics blogs. So a black person who prefers black businesses may be applying his own sense that blacks are higher status than whites.