Inside Higher Ed has the story:

The focus . . . is on questions that show “differential item functioning,” known by its acronym DIF. A DIF question is one on which students “matched by proficiency” and other factors have variable scores, predictably by race, on selected questions. A DIF question has notable differences between black and white (or, in theory, other subsets of students) whose educational background and skill set suggest that they should get similar scores. The 2003 study and this year’s found no DIF issues in the mathematics section.
. . . On some of the easier verbal questions, the two studies found that a DIF favored white students. On some of the most difficult verbal questions, the DIF favored black students. Freedle’s theory about why this would be the case was that easier questions are likely reflected in the cultural expressions that are used commonly in the dominant (white) society, so white students have an edge based not on education or study skills or aptitude, but because they are most likely growing up around white people. The more difficult words are more likely to be learned, not just absorbed.
While the studies found gains for both black and white students on parts of the SAT, the white advantage is larger such that the studies suggest scores for black students are being held down by the way the test is scored and that a shift to favor the more difficult questions would benefit black test-takers.
. . . While the new study found the same DIF that Freedle did, an attempt to find a DIF for Latino students failed to show one.

The College Board disputes the results:

Kathleen Fineout Steinberg, a spokeswoman for the College Board, said that just as the organization disagreed with the 2003 study, so it does with the new research. She questioned whether the California sample could be seen as broad enough to draw conclusions on, and said that some of the tests examined had less of a DIF than others, raising questions about the assumptions made. She called the Harvard Educational Review study an example of “presenting inconsistent findings as conclusive fact.”

Obviously, if some questions unfairly give whites an advantage, they shouldn’t be used. But it’s worth noting that this probably doesn’t explain more than a small fraction of the overall black-white gap. In fact, this gap is greater on the math test — none of whose questions has a DIF as measured by the new study. By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, for the 2008-2009 test-taking set, the gap was .97 standard deviations for reading, and 1.07 standard deviations for math.