In response to disparities in postsecondary access, governments have enacted policies to facilitate the admission of traditionally underrepresented students. Known as affirmative action in the United States, the legal justification of this approach has varied. This article describes the legal and political history of affirmative action, the social…

Some of the nation's most prominent colleges and universities have abandoned their affirmativeaction-based admission policies and adopted race-neutral affirmative action as a result of twolawsuits against the University of Michigan, which threaten the availability of undergraduate andgraduate program access to applicants of color. In this article,…

This study uses data from the CGS/GRE Survey of Graduate Enrollment and Degrees and a methodology that supports causal inference to examine the effects of affirmative action bans in Texas, California, Washington, and Florida on graduate student of color enrollment. The findings show that the bans have reduced by 12.2% the average proportion of…

This study examines whether bans on affirmative action across four states-- Texas (during "Hopwood v. State of Texas"), California (with Proposition 209), Washington (with Initiative 200), and Florida (with One Florida Initiative)--have reduced the enrollment rates of underrepresented students of color in graduate studies and in a…

In the first U.S. Supreme Court case concerning affirmative action in higher education (Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 1978), the splintered court decided that racial diversity serves a compelling state interest, allowing public institutions to count race as one of many diversity factors for admission. Due to the illusive…

This follow-up study finds that very little progress has been made in the state of Florida on the recommendations contained in the Commission on Hispanic Affairs' 1985 Annual Report, "The Hispanic Drop-out Rate," and the 1986 Annual report, "Underrepresentation of Hispanics in State Employment.""The Hispanic Drop-out…