As the fight over diversity-oriented postsecondary strategies like race-conscious admissions (commonly known as affirmative action) continues to play out in the courts with new legal cases, it is critical to better understand the ways policy actors in this arena are leveraging social science research and other types of sources in their organized…

Different from more traditional policy-making avenues, the courts provide an antipolitical arena that does not require broad agreement from various constituents for policy enactment. Seeking to guide court decisions on these policy issues, individuals and organizations have filed "amicus" briefs that increasingly include social science…

During this election year, many people who study race and education had hoped that the nomination of a black presidential candidate and the increased focus on race would have led to a related discussion of equal access to higher education and a turn toward a stronger commitment to the creation of a truly diverse society. However, unfortunately,…