In partnership with Educational Testing Service (ETS) and the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, Salzburg Global Seminar hosted an international strategic dialogue of 60 thought leaders, researchers, and practitioners from institutions serving marginalized populations to…

The identification of gifted and talented students and the accompanying fact that most identification systems result in the underrepresentation of students from African American, Hispanic, Native American, English language learning, and low-income families are two of the most discussed and hotly debated topics in the field. This article provides…

With Critical Race Theory (CRT) and social justice serving as complementary conceptual frames, this ethnographic study investigates the learning and living experiences of ten African American students of a predominantly White university in the Midwest. While several studies have investigated Black students' experiences at PWIs, most notably…

This article examines student perceptions of racial segregation on campus in terms of interaction across racial groups. Theories of colorblind racial ideology are used to interpret data from 14 group interviews focusing on 1.) the degree to which cross-group interaction is desired, 2.) perceptions of racial separation among students at a…

Building upon the tenets of critical race theory (CRT) this qualitative study examines the life histories of eight Black males in their journey to obtain a doctoral degree. The research questions guiding the study include: What are the life histories of eight Black males pursuing doctoral studies? How can we make sense of their life experiences…

The author reports on the U.S. Supreme Court hearing regarding the Texas admissions case that exposes gaps in the affirmative-action law. As the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a lawsuit challenging race-conscious admissions at the University of Texas at Austin, it became evident that the court's past rulings on such policies have failed to…

Although some scholars report that all students are better served by attending more prestigious postsecondary institutions, others have argued that students are better off attending colleges where they are about average in terms of academic ability and suffer worse outcomes if they attend schools that are "out of their league" at which…

Justice Goodwin Liu reexamined seminal affirmative action in higher education legal cases beginning with the landmark 1978 case, "Regents of the University of California v. Bakke" and leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in "Gratz v. Bollinger." Liu argued that the "Bakke and Gratz" lawsuits were…

South African universities and other institutions of higher education currently give preference to student applicants from designated "races". This paper argues that such a policy is morally indefensible. Although the imperative to redress injustice is endorsed, this, it is argued, does not entail that applicants may be favoured on the basis of…

Critics of affirmative action policies contend that the elimination of racial preferences in college admissions would lead to a "more-able" student body. We develop a simple model comprised of three classes of college admissions--merit, race and legacy--to show that it is possible that a change in admissions policy that reduces racial preferences…

This research explores how organizations decide how to respond to the laws that affect them. It investigates how they convert abstract legal changes into concrete policy responses. Much of the legal impact literature focuses exclusively on either on legal institutions and social outcomes, or on the dynamics within organizations. This work…

This is an initial and exploratory comment on the pilot phase of a study into adolescent female white identity and socio-sexual desire in post-apartheid South Africa. In the course of this pilot it became apparent that historical issues of race and racism are openly discussed in these girls' classrooms. Yet, despite these everyday interactions the…

South Africa's government requires information on apartheid race classification to implement and monitor racial redress. This has sparked resistance to race classification as a criterion for redress in higher education admissions. I argue that (1) jettisoning apartheid race categories now in favour of either class or "merit" would set…

Affirmative action is perceived as a corrective policy intended to promote social equity (Crosby, Iyer, & Sincharoen, 2006; Curry & West, 1996; Kaplin & Lee, 2007; Oppenheimer, 1996). Indeed, affirmative action as a policy has been used to address minority underrepresentation (Ball, 2000), remedying the effects of past/current…

Although Catholic universities face a number of challenges in an increasingly unsettled economy, the situation also provides significant opportunities for Catholic universities to highlight the central importance of their Catholic identity in order both to recover their deepest commitments and to realize an advantage in an increasingly competitive…